He said the political system the EPRDF brought into force was "very centralised, very hierarchical [and] decisions were made at the top and communicated down to the grassroots".

But paradoxically, the coalition also granted local decision-making power and autonomy to newly formed regional governments, which were once again largely divided along ethnic lines.

"The regional states controlled courts and universities and radio stations and bureaus of agriculture and water and so forth, and so the political life began to become decentralised," Lyons explained.

"This kind of contradiction between centralising and decentralising [power] was always there, it was always going to be a problem, and now we're seeing it."

Many of the protesters have also complained in recent years about what they see as the disproportionate power wielded by the Tigrayan party within the coalition.

The TPLF has dominated the ruling coalition from the outset - Meles previously headed both the TPLF and the EPRDF - despite the fact that Tigrayan people constitute only six percent of Ethiopia's more than 100 million citizens.

Both prime ministers since the party took power in 1991, Hailemariam and Meles, also chaired the coalition.

"Whoever is chairing the EPRDF has traditionally been the prime minister," Lemma said.

"This makes reforming the [political system] nearly impossible because party and government are one and the same and this is really what the Ethiopian people are fed up with, this blurred line."

The 180-member EPRDF council is expected to meet within the next week to choose a new leader, Hussein said, and that leader would then either be confirmed by parliament as Ethiopia's next prime minister, or have to propose someone else.

The EPRDF council is also expected to meet by early March to decide whether to formally accept Hailemariam's resignation, Getachew Reda, a member of the body's executive committee, recently told Bloomberg.

Any candidate for prime minister must be a member of Ethiopia's parliament.

However, Getachew told Bloomberg that a candidate not currently sitting in parliament, like Oromo leader Megersa, could possibly be brought in after winning a special by-election.

Making the new chair of the Oromo party, Ahmed, the next prime minister "would be historic", said Mohammed Ademo, founder and editor of OPride.com, an independent news website on Ethiopia.

"They could make history here by electing an Oromo for the first time and electing someone with a Muslim background," Ademo told Al Jazeera.

It would also showcase Ethiopia's religious diversity, insomuch as the country has historically been known as a "Christian island in a sea of Muslims", Ademo said.

The Oromo protests were preceded by widespread protests among Muslim Ethiopians - who make up about 30 percent of the population - in 2011 and 2012. They were angered by alleged state interference in their religious affairs. Several prominent Muslim leaders were arrested at the time.

"I'm hopeful that the ruling coalition will make the right choice. I'm hopeful that they will see to it that the people ... have a voice," Ademo said.

For her part, the Addis Standard's Lemma questioned how any new leader would be able to implement genuine reforms when Ethiopia remains strongly dominated by the security apparatus and business interests.

"How is [somebody] going to be an independent prime minister? He is going to be Hailemariam 2.0," Lemma said.

She added that the government should allow opposition parties to participate in a snap election to establish a transitional government ahead of a scheduled vote in 2020, or launch an inclusive, national dialogue.

Opposition parties have been kept out of the Ethiopian parliament for decades and the government has used anti-terrorism legislation to arrest and detain several prominent opposition leaders.

"It would give a [sense of] relief to the Ethiopian people, knowing that the people that they want to represent them, are representing them in the government. That kind of transitional government would save this party from collapse and hence the government at the same time," Lemma said.

But if the government only changes the person at the top, "it will be a matter of when - and not if - the Ethiopian people revolt again".

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS