April 17, 2026
Girma Kebede
London, United Kingdom
Introduction: The Funeral Mask of Democracy
On June 1, 2026, Ethiopians are summoned to the polls for national elections. But this is not democracy – it is a funeral mask placed over a dying nation. While the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed speaks of electoral process, the Amhara region burns. While voter registration continues on paper, drones strike rain death from the skies. While international observers prepare their tepid endorsements, women are subjected to sexual violence as a weapon of war, and civilians are massacred with impunity. This article is a warning and a call: Do not participate in this bloodstained farce. Do not legitimize with your presence what is being accomplished through genocide. The 2026 election is not a path to peace, it is a coronation ceremony held over mass graves.
The Geography of Death: Amhara Under Siege
In the Amhara region, there is no election – there is war. Since April 2023, this ancient land has been consumed by conflict that shows no signs of abating. The Ethiopian National Défense Force, the very institution sworn to protect citizens, has instead turned its weapons against them with devastating effect. The skies above Amhara offer no safety. Government forces have increasingly relied on drone strikes and heavy artillery, transforming vast areas into zones of terror. In early February 2026, a drone strike in North Shewa targeted a civilian home, killing a pregnant woman, her six-year-old daughter, and a young man. On February 20, another strike killed sixteen people including children and injured ten more in East Gojjam. These are not isolated incidents. The United Nations Human Rights Office has documented at least 183 people killed in clashes since July 2025 alone. The Coalition for Ethiopian Unity reports that civilians continue to be killed in drone and heavy weapon attacks across South Wollo Zone, Wegidi Wereda, North Shewa’s Efratana Gidim Wereda, and the towns of Debre Tabor and Wereta. Health facilities have been damaged. Service institutions destroyed. The very infrastructure of civilian life is being systematically dismantled.
The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO) has documented the grim pattern: on February 3, 2026, in Gale, Wegdi Wereda of South Wollo Zone, a woman was wounded by a stray bullet while returning from fetching water. As residents rushed her to a health facility, heavy weapon fire by government security forces killed an unconfirmed number of civilians, including women and elderly residents. This is not law enforcement. This is warfare against civilians.
The Weaponization of Women’s Bodies
The war in Amhara has a particular horror reserved for women. Conflict-related sexual violence has been documented across multiple regions, perpetrated by the Ethiopian National Defense Forces and other armed actors. International human rights organizations have documented abuses that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute. EHRCO reported an incident of sexual violence against women on December 15, 2025, in Boloda area of Zayse Danle Kebele. This is not an aberration – it is a pattern. Women and girls in displacement situations face heightened risk of gender-based violence and sexual exploitation, with limited access to life-saving services.
The Geneva Conventions explicitly prohibit violence against civilians, including rape and outrages upon personal dignity. When these acts are committed during armed conflict, they constitute war crimes. When they are widespread or systematic against a civilian population, they constitute crimes against humanity. Yet perpetrators walk free, and survivors face stigmatization, lack of protection, and virtually no access to justice.
The Fano Warning: Resistance or Collaboration?
The Amhara Fano National Movement has made its position unmistakably clear: any individual or institution participating in the June 2026 election will be viewed as aligning with the federal government’s agenda and will be “considered enemies of the Amhara people equal to the government”. Political parties, media figures, religious leaders, and civic associations have all been warned that involvement in the electoral process means collaboration with what Fano describes as a “genocidal” project by the ruling Prosperity Party. The movement describes the upcoming election as “fraudulent” and incapable of addressing Ethiopia’s political and security challenges. It argues that participating in or supporting the process would effectively endorse ongoing violence against civilians. This warning reflects a deep and justified mistrust – how can an election be legitimate when it is conducted by a government whose drones are killing your children?
Some opposition figures have criticized Fano’s stance, arguing that even limited parliamentary representation can create opportunities to challenge government policies. But this argument misses the fundamental point: representation is meaningless when the represented are being bombed. Political participation is impossible when candidates cannot travel freely, when voters fear for their lives, when entire communities are displaced and living in terror.
The Shrinking Space for Truth
The government’s crackdown extends beyond physical violence to the suppression of information itself. Independent media outlets have been systematically targeted – their licenses revoked, their journalists detained, their newsrooms raided. The Coalition for Ethiopian Unity alleges these measures lack transparency and are driven by fear of exposure of alleged abuses.
The 2025 Freedom House report confirms that authorities have engaged in a pattern of detentions, harassment, and restrictions, leaving the opposition with little ability to participate in meaningful political activity. Journalists working for independent outlets face arbitrary arrest and incommunicado detention. In August and September 2025, at least six journalists and media workers were arbitrarily detained. In April, police raided Addis Standard’s newsroom, detained three managers, and seized devices. This is not an environment conducive to free and fair elections. This is an environment of authoritarian consolidation.
The Diversionary Tactic: Red Sea Dreams While Amhara Burns
As Amhara bleeds, the government speaks of the Red Sea. Prime Minister Abiy has articulated ambitious geopolitical aspirations – securing maritime access, pursuing port agreements with Somaliland, framing Ethiopia’s access to the sea as an “existential matter”. This is diversionary politics at its most cynical. When domestic legitimacy collapses, manufacture foreign policy crises. When citizens are being massacred, talk of national glory. The connection to the election is clear: as the vote approaches, the government leverages foreign policy agendas to bolster legitimacy, framing initiatives as patriotic decisions while the very fabric of the nation tears apart. But the strategy carries its own risks. Ethiopia cannot pursue geopolitical ambitions when it cannot secure its own territory. A government that cannot protect its citizens from drone strikes has no business speaking of national destiny.
The Numbers of Exclusion
The scale of disenfranchisement is staggering. In the Amhara region – home to approximately a quarter of Ethiopia’s population – meaningful political campaigning is virtually impossible. Political actors cannot travel freely, even within the regional capital of Bahir Dar. The customary interactions between candidates and voters have largely ceased. Fano fighters control significant portions of the countryside, while government forces struggle to maintain authority even in some urban centres. Many local officials have abandoned their homes, seeking refuge in military camps. Millions of civilians remain displaced. Under these conditions, how can anyone speak of democratic participation?
The situation in Tigray is equally dire. The region was excluded from the 2021 elections entirely, leaving its population without representation for five years. Despite the November 2022 Pretoria Agreement, the National Election Board revoked the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s legal status in May 2025. Conducting a second consecutive election without Tigray would effectively disenfranchise millions for an entire decade. The so called, Oromia region continues to experience warfare between the government and the Oromo Liberation Army. Benishangul-Gumuz faces ongoing conflict that has displaced over 300,000 people. In the South Ethiopia region, clashes over demands for wereda status have killed more than 21 people and destroyed property. The cumulative effect is a nation where stability remains a distant memory.
The International Complicity
The international community bears its own responsibility. The European Union will send an election observation mission and has restarted humanitarian aid, despite acknowledging that little progress has been made on Tigray and that it is “impossible to imagine” elections taking place there. The EU’s conditional approach – threatening to withdraw observers if the situation deteriorates – reflects awareness that conditions for credible elections do not exist, even as engagement continues. The United States has historically treated Ethiopia as a critical counterterrorism partner, leading administration officials to “create fantasy stories which cast Ethiopia as democratic and its leaders as progressive”. This pattern – praising flawed elections as evidence of democratic progress while ignoring systematic repression – has enabled authoritarian consolidation.
International observers will likely face restricted access and carefully curated narratives. The government maintains effective control over Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa, along with parts of major cities in Oromia and majority areas in several other regions. These “relatively secure and visible areas, which are accessible to the international community and media, will allow the government to project an image of safety and legitimacy, portraying the elections as fair and broadly endorsed”. Observers, including the African Union, are likely to describe the process as generally “orderly, peaceful, and credible” – phrases that obscure the fundamental exclusion and repression characterizing the broader electoral environment.
The Choice Before Us
Democracy requires more than casting ballots. It demands security, freedom of movement, political inclusivity, and independent media. In Ethiopia today, these conditions do not exist. In Amhara, they have been actively destroyed. The Fano warning is clear: participation in this election means complicity with genocide. When you cast a ballot, you endorse a government whose drones kill pregnant women. When you register to vote, you legitimize a regime that uses sexual violence as a weapon of war. When you stand in line at a polling station, you stand on the graves of the massacred. The choice facing Ethiopians is stark. You can participate in this bloodstained ritual and watch your country burn. Or you can refuse – refuse to legitimize, refuse to collaborate, refuse to be complicit. The path of resistance is hard. It carries risks. But the path of participation carries something worse: the weight of history’s judgment. Amhara is bleeding. The skies rain death. Women are violated with impunity. And the government asks you to vote.
Do not go
Let this election be what it deserves to be: empty polling stations in a nation at war with itself. Let the world see that Ethiopians will not be complicit in their own destruction. Let the Prosperity Party hold its coronation alone, in an empty hall, while the real Ethiopia – the Ethiopia of Amhara farmers, of Tigrayan mothers, of Oromo youth – refuses to play its part in this tragedy.
History will remember who stood where. Choose wisely.
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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