"Honored", "delighted". These are the adjectives used by Abiy Ahmed to describe his feelings after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize 2019, Friday, October 11.

In awarding the prize, the Nobel Committee said it was rewarding the Ethiopian Prime Minister for "his decisive initiative to resolve the border dispute with neighboring Eritrea". Appointed in April 2018 after several years of anti-government protests, Abiy Ahmed worked from the beginning of his term of office to resolve hostilities in the Horn of Africa, going as far as to engage the peace process with Eritrea, after several decades of conflict.

I am humbled by the decision of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. My deepest gratitude to all committed and working for peace. This award is for Ethiopia and the African continent. We shall prosper in peace!

Abiy Ahmed Ali (@AbiyAhmedAli) October 11, 2019

Initiator of many reforms to deeply transform Ethiopia, a long-time authoritarian, Nobel Prize winner 2019 said: "I imagine that other leaders of Africa will think that it is possible to to work on the processes of building peace on our continent. "

"It does not mean anything," reacts Rene Lefort, researcher and specialist of the Horn of Africa. "Africa can be optimistic because an African is nobelled, but I do not think this is a positive signal for Ethiopia."

"We did not solve anything at all"

Building peace in East Africa, Abiy Ahmed, the youngest African leader at the age of 43, said it was her priority and started her in the first months of her term.

In July 2018, during a historic visit to the Eritrean capital, Asmara, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia signs with the President of Eritrea, Issayas Afewerki, a declaration stating that "the state of war (...) has arrived at its end". The end of a war of several decades against a background of territorial conflict that, according to sources, will have made between 50,000 and 100,000 deaths.

Yet the crisis between Ethiopia and Eritrea is today far from over. Since 2018 and the famous picture of leaders falling into each other's arms, the peace process between Asmara and Addis Ababa seems at a standstill.

Indeed, one year after the resumption of dialogue between the ex-enemy brothers, the border between the two countries is closed again, the signing of trade agreements is not forthcoming, and Ethiopia still does not have access to the ports. Eritrean. At independence in 1993, Eritrea took control of the ports of Massawa and Assab, depriving its Ethiopian neighbor of its only access to the Red Sea.

"Today, peace with Eritrea is completely blocked," insists René Lefort, a researcher and specialist in the Horn of Africa. "There are air links, telephone, diplomatic relations, but the border posts are closed.There is no more terrestrial communication possible between the two countries, and no one knows why," he adds, declaring that it is "astounding" that the Nobel Prize indicates that Abiy Ahmed has allowed the resolution of the border conflict.

"We did not solve anything at all, we alleviated tensions and reestablished a small beginning of relations, but we are not even in the middle of the work, we are only at the beginning of the work", adds he said, stating that this Nobel Prize "is not only premature, but it is mostly a mistake."

Interference in the Ethiopian political game

Protecting herself from any controversy, Norwegian Nobel Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen has nuanced her argument, saying the award was "both recognition and encouragement for her efforts". A step already taken in 2009: Just elected US President, Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" .

The second most populous country on the African continent with some 110 million inhabitants, Ethiopia stagnates at 128th out of 167 in the democracy index of the British weekly The Economist (scoring 0/10 for concerns the electoral process and pluralism, Ed). If the Nobel Prize awarded to Abiy Ahmed was motivated by the Norwegian committee as a welcome boost for the Ethiopian leader to whom "there are certainly several challenges to overcome," Rene Lefort does not adhere to this justification, saying that Nobel Prize is an "anointing" given to the Ethiopian leader who, after "marginalizing institutions, will now be even safer than he alone holds the truth".

"To put Abiy Ahmed so far ahead means that the international community gives him support to win the next elections," said the researcher, as the country is engaged in a tense electoral process. "It's an interference in the Ethiopian political game that shocks me."

If the new Prime Minister has broken down, in terms of domestic politics, with the authoritarianism of his predecessors, many analysts doubt his ability to keep his promise to hold elections "free", fair and "democratic" in May 2020, when intercommunal violence divides the country and makes the polls uncertain.

"Abiy Ahmed said that he was convinced that he had been given his mission to straighten Ethiopia out of God, and with the Nobel Prize, he is anointed by the international community, and I fear that this will reinforce the drift towards the personal power that we are witnessing today, "says René Lefort, saying that the price obtained by the Ethiopian prime minister does not serve Ethiopia.

"If you had to award a Nobel Peace Prize to someone in Ethiopia, it was the demonstrators who brought down the previous regime and the dictatorial system," said the researcher. "Abiy Ahmed only embodies the face of a much larger movement," he concludes. The culmination of a popular uprising for more democracy, more than an evolution of the Ethiopian rulers themselves.