In Arada, St George Square, just to the south of the old Addis Abeba Fire Station building is a little obscure street, the strangely named Eon Street, that runs to Ras Mekonnen Square in Piassa. Alongside this relic of a road flourishes the typical urban scene of our enigmatic capital that pulses and thumps in an endless rhythm of life that defies its ever-present blight.

There, among the corrugated metal sheds and plastic-covered stands of small market traders, booksellers, street vendors, tailor stalls and road-side cafès, is an old rambling building that still houses the offices of what remains of Qinijit, one of the opposition parties of that infamous election of 2005.

In one of the rundown rooms, two women operate a paralegal business that churns-out dozens of legal documents that are otherwise prepared by lawyers. Their clients are as varied as the documents that they whip out of a small printer and a busy photocopier that continually shakes and rumbles from overuse and age.

Coalition for Unity & Democracy, or Qinijit, is one of the opposition coalition parties that faced the incumbent, EPRDF, it too a coalition creature of its own. On the walls of the building are hung old crumpled posters with pictures of bygone party events. Some placards are etched in ink with stories of the chaos that followed the controversial election - narratives of winning the election, imprisonment, pleas for pardons, exiles and congresses held to resurrect the party after its demise by faith, internal squabbles, incompetence and autocratic rule.

During those heady days, political parties had mushroomed into a mad collection of fraught alliances and groupings, much as they have today.

What they all had in common then was that they were all desperately cobbled up assemblages with dumfounding names and acronyms that beguile ordinary folks - UED, ESDFP, ONC, SEPDC, CAFPDE, CUD, AEUP and EDUP-(M).

Fourteen years on there are nearly 80 different political parties and coalitions, with as many names and acronyms, gearing up to compete in the upcoming 2020 elections. For the most part, they all resemble their predecessors and have names that begin with their geographic origins, with “Ethiopia” sometimes inserted for variation.

These parochial names are typically embellished by the adjective “Democratic,” that is routinely followed by nouns such as “Movement”, “Front”, “Party”, “Congress” and “Organisation.” Their existence and legitimacy, it seems, is purely confined and branded by their alliance to a particular group and region and nothing more.

Most have no membership lists that they can bring to the public forum; nor any legitimate constituency that has bestowed upon them the power of representation; or much else in the way of party mechanism or program that they can point to.

Today, Qinijithas splintered into many factions that are still led by some opposition leaders who sprang to prominence during the infamous 2005 elections.