<P> The 835 - member legislature, the National Shengo, was defined as the highest organ of state power . Its members were elected to five - year terms . Executive power was vested in a president, elected by the National Shengo for a five - year term, and a cabinet also appointed by the Shengo . The president was chairman of the Council of State, which acted for the legislature between sessions . </P> <P> Actual power, however, rested in the Workers' Party of Ethiopia, defined as the leading force of state and society . More specifically, actual power rested with Mengistu, who was not only president of the country but general secretary of the WPE . He and the other surviving members of the Derg dominated the WPE's Politburo . In essence, the power structure set up by the constitution was a carbon copy of the power structure in other Communist countries . The party was granted even more power than the government, which acted more or less as a transmission belt for the party . As was the case with other Communist legislatures, the National Shengo was nominally vested with great lawmaking powers, but actually did little more than rubber - stamp decisions already made by the WPE and its Politburo . </P> <P> The Constitution guaranteed all manner of civil rights and personal freedoms, such as freedom of speech, the press, religion, movement, assembly, and association . Citizens also had the right to a fair trial and a free education . In practice, as in all Communist regimes, the government paid almost no attention to these freedoms . As had been the case during the Derg era, Ethiopia ranked at or near the bottom of most measures of human rights and civil liberties . </P> <P> The primary task facing the Workers' Party of Ethiopia (WPE) following its formation in 1984 was to devise the new national constitution that would inaugurate the PDRE . In March 1986, a 343 - member Constitutional Commission was formed to draft a new constitution based on the principles of scientific socialism . Eventually, the 122 full and alternate members of the WPE Central Committee who had been appointed to its membership dominated the commission . </P>

Compare and contrast the 1987 and 1995 constitution of ethiopia