Ideological polarity of Ethiopian people’s revolutionary democratic front coalition parties: A critical discourse analysis on the parties’ mottoes of the 2018 annual congresses

Abstract

The goal of this research is to critically analyze and uncover the ideologies contained in the 2018 mottoes of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front coalition parties (EPRDF). The texts of the mottoes developed and used by the EPRDF coalition parties were the type of data used in this study. A critical examination of the data revealed that presupposition was used as the primary discursive strategy in the presentation of the mottoes, and the status quo versus the reformist ideologies were discovered to be the two polarized ideologies that can also be referred to as competing discourses. Some parties portrayed themselves as pro-reformists in their mottoes, while others portrayed themselves as anti-reformists. Thus, the study’s findings show that, while coalition parties are expected to plan and work toward a common goal, EPRDF coalition parties have been found with polarized ideologies that are realized as pro reformists versus pro status quo, as portrayed in the parties’ 2018 annual congress mottoes.

Keywords

• critical discourse analysis
• motto
• ideology
• reform
• status quo