One Year on, Tough Times Loom for Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed, By Chris Stein

ADDIS ABABA — In his first speech as Ethiopian prime minister last April, Abiy Ahmed called for an end to the repressive, exclusionary governance that had plunged the country into turmoil.

It was a promise on which he is seen to have delivered dramatically, earning him both international acclaim and domestic popularity so great that his keenest supporters say he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.

“Before Abiy came, our fear was that Ethiopia would descend into civil war,” said Hassen Hussein, a top official in the Oromo Democratic Front, one of the many banned groups welcomed back from exile.

Yet the new prime minister’s first year in office has also been marked by a surge in ethnic violence that has forced 1.8 million people out of their homes.

While Abiy has remade the public face of the ruling omnipotent Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), diplomats and politicians say politics remains very much as usual at the local level.

“Many people, especially at the grassroots level, are asking, where is the change?” said Merera Gudina, a top opposition politician. “Both the depth and pace of change… people are really doubting.”

As Abiy enters his second year in office, he faces a new challenge: keeping his promise to make 2020 elections free and fair despite rising political violence.

Abiy, who was sworn into power on April 2, 2018, took office following the resignation of his predecessor Hailemariam Desalegn, after more than two years of anti-government protests and growing discord within the EPRDF.

A former science minister, Abiy comes from the Oromo people, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group. He rose up through the military and intelligence services, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel.

The 42-year-old won over Ethiopians with his rapid, dramatic reforms, often delivered with a personal touch.

He met publicly with newly-freed political prisoners and held repeated meetings with old foe Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki to negotiate a July 2018 agreement re-establishing relations following a bloody 1998-2000 border war. For the first time in the country’s history, he is negotiating with the opposition,” said Merera, who was jailed under Hailemariam, then released on the eve of his resignation.

But Merera worries whether the four parties that make up the EPRDF — and especially the old guard from the Tigrayan minority that dominated the coalition until Abiy’s rise — really support him.

“We are not sure the degree to which the EPRDF is committed,” he said.

At the local level, politics has changed little.

“The ruling party is the ruling party; the cadres are the same, the service delivery is the same,” Merera said.

Those who have met the prime minister worry over his tendency to show off his accomplishments while revealing little about his plans to tackle the country’s challenges. — AFP

By Chris Stein