high hubris
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s mandate to govern is likely to be extended on 1 June. Yet, economic reform has stalled, relations with Eritrea soured, armed conflict in Tigray, Oromia and Amhara flared up, and urbanisation projects displaced tens of thousands.
By AFP
Published yesterday at 10:59 am (GMT +1)
When Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018, aged 42, he carried with him the weight of Ethiopia‘s hopes. Having come to power after months of popular unrest, he “enjoyed broad public support, along with a genuine expectation of change,” says Roland Marchal, a researcher at the Centre for International Studies and Research (CERI) in Paris.
Today, “he looks more and more like an autocrat”, says Cameron Hudson, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Ahead of Ethiopia’s legislative elections on 1 June, which are expected to extend his mandate, Abiy faces growing criticism over his grip on power in a country that is fracturing along deep lines.
Religion and power
From the outset, faith has shaped the way Abiy governs. A committed Pentecostal Protestant, he founded his Prosperity Party in 2019 – a name drawn directly from “prosperity theology,” the doctrine holding that wealth and health are signs of divine blessing.
READ MOREEthiopia: Rising resentment against ruling Prosperity Party in Amhara
“You cannot understand how Abiy governs without grasping the central place religion holds in his worldview,” writes journalist Tom Gardner, author of The Abiy Project: God, Power and War in the New Ethiopia.
“Abiy sees himself as an instrument of divine will, and believes his leadership carries a sacred purpose.” That outlook, Gardner says, “leaves little room for dissent. It is not a particularly democratic cast of mind”.
From soldier to statesman
Abiy was born on 15 August 1976 in modest circumstances in Beshasha, in the regional state of Oromia, to a Muslim father and an Orthodox Christian mother – the two main faiths in Ethiopia.
As a young man, he took part in the armed struggle against the military-Marxist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam, which was overthrown in 1991 by Tigrayan rebels from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). That movement would go on to dominate Ethiopian politics through a coalition notionally representing the country’s 80 peoples.
READ MOREThe Four Horsemen of the TPLF: Meet the hardliners seeking to dominate northern Ethiopia
Abiy rose steadily through the ranks of the army. As a lieutenant-colonel, he spent two years running the electronic intelligence agency. In 2010, he exchanged his uniform for a seat in parliament, and by 2015 was serving as minister of science and technology.
In 2018, after months of protests in Oromia and Amhara – the two most populous regions – against the effective dominance of the Tigrayan elite in Addis Ababa, prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn resigned. A weakened ruling coalition chose, for the first time, an Oromo to lead the country.
‘Abiymania’
The early months brought something close to euphoria, at home and abroad – what observers dubbed “Abiymania”. The new prime minister freed political prisoners, loosened controls on the press and promised to overhaul an economy long strangled by the state. “In those first months in power, he showed real courage,” says Marchal.
He was blinded by his hatred of the TPLF
Abiy’s efforts to normalise relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea after two decades of open conflict – from 1998 to 2000 – and years of cold hostility earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. Accepting it, he described war as “the truest hell”.
READ MOREEthiopia’s seventh cycle: Why democratic reform is stalling at the grassroots
Yet, less than a year later, he sent federal troops into Tigray to crush the TPLF, which governed the region and had entered into direct opposition with him, accusing it of attacking military bases. Two years of war, marked by widespread atrocities and a near-total blockade of the region, left at least 600,000 people dead before a peace agreement was reached at the end of 2022.
“The hope he inspired was quickly tarnished,” says Marchal. “He was blinded by his hatred of the TPLF, and the Nobel was given far too soon.”
A country splintering
By 2026, old tensions resurfaced. Fighting has flared again in Tigray. Relations with Eritrea have soured over Abiy’s stated ambition to secure a maritime outlet for landlocked Ethiopia. The country’s second most populous nation in Africa – home to 130 million people – is also torn by armed conflict in Oromia and Amhara. Journalists are once again being jailed, and the Prosperity Party holds 96% of seats in parliament.
READ MOREEthiopia-Eritrea: Has Abiy met his match as Asmara and Tigray join forces?
Economic reform has stalled, and the country struggles to attract outside investment. Meanwhile, Abiy – a father to three daughters with his wife Zinash Tayachew, and the adoptive father of a son since 2018 – presses ahead with ambitious modernisation schemes. Urban renewal projects have displaced large numbers of residents from major cities.
Hudson draws a pointed comparison between Abiy and Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s authoritarian president of 26 years: “The streets are clean, it all looks rather nice – but the regime is brutal.” Abiy, he adds, “is convinced he can carry through projects that will transform the country. But that comes with a considerable measure of hubris.”
- AFP