Ethiopia’s political rifts to persist after elections

Ethiopians vote in general elections in June, deciding on the country’s national policy, regional strategy and whether controversial reforms will continue.

After a transition from an imperial to a republican form of government, Ethiopia, Africa’s oldest independent country, experienced a communist dictatorship, followed by decades of authoritarianism. In 2018, however, following two years of protests, change came once more with the rise to power of the young Abiy Ahmed, who combined the advantages of being an insider with the promise of reform and renewal.

Prime Minister Ahmed’s legacy, which is marked by a reconfiguration of the party system and economic reforms, but also by a brutal civil war and several insurgencies, will be tested in the upcoming June general elections. The results will determine whether stability or ethnic tensions prevail in the Horn of Africa.

For almost three decades, Ethiopia was governed by authoritarians, namely by Meles Zenawi, who served as president (1991-1995) and then prime minister until his death in 2012. His party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), was a coalition of several regional and ethnic parties. Zenawi, like Paul Kagame in Rwanda, was often portrayed as a “benevolent autocrat,” whose undemocratic exercise of power was mitigated − in the eyes of many observers − by remarkable rates of economic growth, major public works and the improvement of development indicators in a highly challenging context.

Zenawi died in 2012 and was succeeded by Hailemariam Desalegn. Between 2015 and 2018, a wave of protests, driven largely by grievances over political marginalization, land and representation, shook the country and exposed deep tensions within the political system. When Mr. Desalegn resigned, the young Abiy Ahmed was widely seen as the right leader for the task at hand. An insider to the ruling coalition, he was the first Ethiopian prime minister from the Oromo people, the country’s largest ethnic group, long perceived as politically marginalized.

Mr. Ahmed’s ascent to power was marked by widespread optimism and the sense of a new dawn, both within Ethiopia and abroad. The prime minister was seen as a reformer, and some of his first measures, including the release of political prisoners, the legalization of opposition groups and the lifting of media restrictions, were interpreted as signs of political opening after decades of authoritarian rule.

Mr. Ahmed’s ascent to power was marked by widespread optimism and the sense of a new dawn, both within Ethiopia and abroad. 

Particularly significant was his decision to negotiate with Isaias Afewerki, the president of Eritrea, to end a long-standing conflict, a move that brought him international recognition and a Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. During his first years in office, the government also took concrete steps to open the Ethiopian economy, including liberalizing key sectors such as logistics and telecommunications and initiating the partial privatization of state-owned enterprises.

However, the most consequential decision taken by Prime Minister Ahmed was the dissolution of the EPRDF, which was replaced by the Prosperity Party. This change was intended to move away from a system of ethnic politics toward a broader, nationwide political organization. In practice, however, the reform disrupted the delicate balances underpinning Ethiopia’s ethnic federal system and gave way to new conflict.

The refusal of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) – which governed the Tigray region and had long been dominant within the old coalition – to merge into the new party fueled a rapid deterioration of relations with the federal government, ultimately leading to the Tigray War in late 2020. In the 2021 elections, amid boycotts in the Tigray region and restrictions allegedly imposed to contain Covid-19, the Prosperity Power won 96 percent of the parliamentary seats.

Despite these positive trends, major structural challenges remain. Beyond the persistent risks of war and political instability, fiscal debt and risks associated with restructuring negotiations, inflation and high poverty levels continue to weigh on the economy.

The poverty rate is estimated at over 33 percent and is particularly salient in rural areas, where roughly 80 percent of the population resides. At the same time, with a population of approximately 131 million people, Ethiopia represents a demographic powerhouse. It is positioned to benefit from a demographic dividend − when a country’s working-age population becomes larger than the dependent population and can thus boost economic growth − within the next two decades.

Large-scale infrastructure and industrial projects aimed at improving connectivity and energy sovereignty are also improving the country’s long-term economic prospects. These initiatives include the “Digital Ethiopia 2025” strategy, major transport corridors such as the Modjo-Hawassa Expressway, and plans for new oil refineries and other energy projects.

The flagship of this developmental push is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), first announced by Mr. Zenawi in 2011 and inaugurated under the leadership of Prime Minister Ahmed in September 2025. The largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa and a source of geopolitical tensions, GERD is expected to significantly expand reliable access to electricity and has also been presented domestically as a symbol of sovereignty and national unity. Notably, the project was financed to a large extent through domestic contributions, including bonds purchased by millions of Ethiopians, both at home and in the diaspora. Yet the dam is a bone of contention with Egypt, and to a lesser degree Sudan, which both fear for their water supplies.

The most complex challenges facing Ethiopia, however, lie in the political domain. Although federalism was introduced in 1995, the country still struggles to find a stable formula that balances regional autonomy with national unity and accommodates ethnic identity and representation within a coherent state structure. The constitution grants substantial autonomy to regional states, including, in principle, the right to secession; but in practice the regions remain highly dependent on federal institutions, which retain most key political and fiscal competencies.

While Mr. Ahmed has pushed toward decentralization and created three additional regions, the reconfiguration of the political system has triggered tensions which ultimately led to war. The replacement of the EPRDF coalition of ethnic- and regional-based parties with the Prosperity Party, in a first-past-the-post electoral system, exacerbates ethnic and regional disagreements.

Ethnic nationalism continues to be a powerful force in several Ethiopian regions as well as throughout the Horn of Africa. It is these divisions that currently represent the most serious threat to Prime Minister Ahmed’s rule.

Election periods, like those taking place in June, are particularly sensitive times. The war that erupted in 2021 was triggered, among other factors, by the Tigray regional authorities’ decision to hold their own vote in 2020 despite objections from the federal government.

The peace between the central government and the TPLF reached in November 2022 through the Pretoria Agreement remains fragile, as evidenced by periodic clashes involving the Tigray Defense Forces, federal troops and Amhara militias in disputed areas such as Tselemti in Western Tigray. These incidents occur against a backdrop of severe human and material destruction, large numbers of internally displaced persons and unresolved land disputes between Tigrayan and Amhara forces.

The situation is similar in other Ethiopian regions. Since 2023, Amhara, the second-most populous state, has been the stage of an insurgency by the Fano, a militia composed of self-defense groups, which played a key role in supporting federal forces in the Tigrayan conflict and refused to be dissolved and integrated into the national army after the war.

Also in Oromia, homeland of the Oromo people, there have been clashes between their liberation army and Ethiopia’s federal troops.

Events in the country have ramifications for the wider region. Tensions from the presence of Eritrean troops along Ethiopia’s northern border have been amplified by Addis Ababa’s renewed emphasis on regaining access to the Red Sea, which it lost in 1993 after the formal independence of Eritrea.

This claim, which Asmara perceives as a risk to its territorial integrity, has put additional pressure on relations between the two countries. The situation calmed somewhat in 2023 following the peace deal in Tigray and Mr. Ahmed’s guarantee that Ethiopia would not invade Eritrea.

In 2024, Ethiopia and Somaliland, the breakaway region of Somalia that declared independence in 1991, signed a memorandum of understanding under which Addis Ababa would move toward recognizing Somaliland’s sovereignty in exchange for Ethiopian access to the Red Sea near the Port of Berbera. While Asmara was relieved at the agreement, it sparked fury and fear in Mogadishu, further fueled by Israel’s recent recognition of Somaliland, the only United Nations member state to do so.

The most likely scenario for Ethiopia pre- and post-elections is persistent instability and fragmentation, accompanied by low- to medium-intensity violence. While in several regions the electoral process is expected to proceed relatively smoothly, and Prime Minister Ahmed and the Prosperity Party are expected to secure a solid victory, the situation in regions such as Amhara and Afar is likely to be more volatile. The continuing risk of armed clashes, and even fragmentation, is closely linked to the way many local populations perceive the reconfiguration of the party system, particularly the shift away from more explicitly ethnic and regionally based forms of political representation.

At the regional level in eastern Africa, the most probable scenario is one of sustained tension rather than open interstate war. Paradoxically, continued instability in northern Ethiopia, and especially in Tigray, may function as a form of proxy confrontation, thereby reducing the immediate likelihood of a full-scale conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Pre- and post-election tensions and localized but persistent violence would increase the risk of a regional contagion in the medium term. Such a dynamic could further destabilize the already fragile balance between two poles in permanent tension: regional autonomy and political centralization. Any significant shift in the configuration of the Ethiopian state would, in turn, generate broader regional repercussions over the medium to long term, as neighboring actors adapt their strategies to the changing political and security environment.

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