Ethiopia: Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's new party-state put to the test
Posters of the Prosperity Party on a street in Addis Ababa.
Eduardo Soteras AFP / Archivos
Text by: Noé Hochet-Bodin Follow
7 mins
The legislative elections on Monday, June 21 will be a first electoral test for the Prosperity Party, Abiy Ahmed's party, founded in December 2019. As Ethiopia becomes mired in a war and a humanitarian crisis in Tigray, the Prime Minister seeks with this election to consolidate his grip on power.
Publicity
Read more
The bulbs are visible everywhere on the roundabouts and avenues of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, but they do not illuminate anything.
An illuminated bulb is the symbol chosen by the Prosperity Party to lead the first electoral campaign in its short history.
“
We had never seen such a show of force in previous polls
, slips a researcher who wishes to remain anonymous.
It's everywhere.
"
As important as the formation of the Prime Minister is, it is nonetheless a novelty in the Ethiopian political landscape. Abiy Ahmed
founded this party
, "
his party
" will say some, in December 2019, ten days before moving to Oslo in Norway to receive
his Nobel Peace Prize
. The award was given to him for his peace efforts with the Eritrean neighbor. Described as a peacemaker less than two years ago, Abiy appears today as a warlike leader after the humanitarian tragedy caused by his military intervention in Tigray province, where 90% of the population is now in need of food aid.
Propelled to the head of the government by his peers in 2018, because representing the compromise, Abiy Ahmed presents himself for the first time as a big favorite this Monday, June 21 during the legislative elections. The Prime Minister, in difficulty on the international scene since the beginning of the war in Tigray, seeks above all a strong legitimacy.
“
The only thing we are sure of in Ethiopia today is that the Prosperity Party will win the elections with flying colors,” said
a diplomat.
The rest is the unknown
!
"
It is difficult to predict the extent of the victory in the absence of a poll and even a precise census of the population.
It is also difficult to rule out the hypothesis of a tidal wave of
Biltsigina
("prosperity" in Amharic), so much does it control all the structures of the State.
He is also standing alone in the Oromia region, Ethiopia's largest province, following the boycott of the two main regional opposition parties, the OLF and the OFC.
"
Abiy Ahmed has emerged as an obvious compromise
"
To grasp the extent of his stranglehold, we must return to the transition started by the Ethiopian leader three years ago, where he announced that he wanted to turn the page on a governance system that is three decades old and highly unpopular. In 1991, when the Derg military regime fell, an alliance of regional parties appeared under the title of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDRPE). Under its air of coalition, power then actually belongs to the Front for the Liberation of the People of Tigray (FLPT), a party which is fighting today in the mountains of Tigray. Except that by dint of repression and corruption, the Tigrayan party will be unanimous against him in Ethiopia, to the point of having to resolve to let go of power.
"
Abiy Ahmed's rise is not due to any genius or particular talent on his part,
recalls the CERI researcher at Sciences-Po Paris, Roland Marchal.
It emerged as an obvious compromise after the major nationalist demonstrations in Oromia and Amhara regions.
"
See also Ethiopia: thirty years ago the Mengistu regime fell
Indeed, Abiy presents an ideal profile; both from the old regime and capable of embodying a renewal. This forty-something, former deputy of the coalition, colonel of the army and director of the services of the national cybersecurity agency, is part of the state apparatus. From a Muslim Oromo father and an Orthodox Amhara mother, he is at the crossroads of Ethiopian cultures. He has everything to embody reconciliation after 27 years of authoritarian practices orchestrated by the FLPT.
The Tigrayan party represents the stone in Abiy Ahmed's shoe as soon as he comes to power.
The Tigrayans then control large parts of the economy and almost all of the security apparatus.
“
The main reason behind the creation of the Prosperity Party is to get rid of the FDRPE and therefore of the influence of the Tigrayans,”
continues Roland Marchal
.
It is also a way for Abiy Ahmed to be able to appoint trusted lieutenants to decision-making positions and to avoid having his work sabotaged by the FLPT
.
"
A united Ethiopia across cultural divides
Goodbye FDRPE, hello Prosperity Party. Renovation of the facade does not necessarily mean major restructuring. All the formations of the old coalition join the new party with the exception of the FLPT, which fears that its interests are threatened by the new deal. The leader of the Tigrayan party Debretsion Gebremichael will describe this political reshuffle “
illegal and reactionary
”. The divorce has started. It will be definitively consumed on November 4, the date of the start of the war between the two actors.
The
Biltsigina
wants to settle with the ethnocentric vision promoted by the TPLF for nearly thirty years and wants to impose the idea
of Ethiopia-Andinet
a united Ethiopia beyond cultural divisions.
A real test for the Ethiopian leader while community conflicts are increasing dangerously.
"
The rest of their program is not clear
," assures Girmachew Alemu, professor of law at the University of Addis Ababa.
They have announced major projects on the country's economy, but this is slow to materialize.
And on a primordial theme such as land ownership, it is radio silence
.
"
"
It's very clever to have used the word Prosperity for his party
"
The economic reforms have raised the notoriety of Abiy Ahmed. The young Prime Minister promises in 2018 a forced liberalization and dynamism the economy of this country with a strong interventionist tradition, thus raising the hopes of major international financial institutions and investors. Three years later, the reform agenda is sluggish, like the recent
partial opening of the telecommunications sector
; ambitious, but incomplete.
"
It's very clever to have used the word Prosperity for his party, it's a catchy term,"
says Girmachew Alemu.
It is almost impossible for the other parties to oppose the idea of the nation's prosperity
. The connotation is not only economic. A member of a Pentecostal church, Abiy Ahmed is a follower of the “prosperity gospel,” which links spiritual and financial health.
“
The evangelist speech is a hymn to individual success
,” recalls Roland Marchal.
The Prime Minister multiplies the speeches centered on love, mutual aid and peace.
"
It is a way of shifting the debate to the level of values, and therefore of being able to offer a discourse on conflicts that does not involve taking a political position
", specifies the researcher.
As religious competition intensifies in Ethiopia between the powerful Orthodox Church, Islam and the new Protestant cults, Abiy Ahmed's displayed faith could earn him broad support in the south of the country, which is predominantly Pentecostal.
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Ethiopia
Abiy Ahmed
our selection