Ethiopia holds elections with PM Abiy’s party expected to dominate

Ethiopians have begun voting in parliamentary and regional elections, with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s party projected to win by a landslide, despite significant unrest in much of the country.

More than 50 million people are registered to vote on Monday. However, polling will not take place in the northern Tigray region, where the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) has cited “unfavourable conditions” following a 2020 to 2022 civil war and continuing political turmoil.

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Abiy, 49, is looking to further consolidate his grip on national politics. He was sworn in as prime minister in 2018, following the resignation of his predecessor, Hailemariam Desalegn, after mass protests against the long-ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition; his Prosperity Party won 410 out of 484 seats in parliament in the 2021 elections.

Prosperity Party candidates have campaigned on the government’s economic record, citing improved food security and economic growth in Africa’s second-most populous country, which officials project will top 10 percent in 2026, one of the fastest rates on the continent.

Nearly half of Ethiopia’s 135 million people are aged below 18.

Regional insecurity

Abiy faces rebellions in two of the country’s biggest regions linked to grievances by different ethnic groups about alleged marginalisation within Ethiopia’s federal system.

In the southern and central region of Oromia, fighting between government forces and the Oromo Liberation Army separatist group has killed hundreds of people in the past few years.

In neighbouring Amhara, the Fano armed group has seized swaths of the countryside since 2023. As a result, voting will not take place in at least eight of the region’s 138 constituencies.

Meanwhile, although a 2022 peace deal ended the civil war in Tigray, which researchers say caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, a move last month by the main political party there to reassert control over the region’s political administration has led Ethiopian officials and analysts to warn of the risk of unrest again.

The Prosperity Party is nevertheless anticipated to dominate the elections against a fragmented opposition weakened by internal rivalries. Results are expected by June 11.

Opposition parties accuse the federal government of undermining them by arresting their leaders and imposing legal obstacles to their political activities, charges denied by the government.

Upon taking office in 2018, Abiy moved to liberalise Ethiopia’s tightly controlled economy and freed journalists, activists and other political prisoners. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for ending hostilities with neighbouring Eritrea.

His opponents and human rights activists accuse the Abiy government of reversing those gains in recent years by jailing journalists, shutting down civil society groups and overseeing military campaigns marked by atrocities.

The government has denied charges of systematic human rights abuses and says its actions are necessary to protect national security.

The rapprochement with Eritrea has given way to the return of animosity in the past few years, in part over repeated declarations by Abiy that landlocked Ethiopia has a right to sea access.

Eritrea, which won its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, has viewed the comments as an implicit threat of military aggression.