Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Picture: REUTERS/TIKSA NEGERI
More than two and a half years after the ex-army intelligence officer rode a wave of pro-democracy protests to power, Abiy’s ambitions to raise Ethiopia’s regional profile and strengthen its economy with his push for national “synergy” have rubbed up against the conflicting interests of its 80 ethnic groups and multiple religions.
Abiy says he had to take on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front , which dominated the government for 27 years, after it seized the federal army’s Northern Command in November. “Their fall will change things,” Bruton said of the TPLF. “We’re talking about a dramatically empowered Ethiopia.”To others, though, Abiy is an all-too-familiar style of leader — a populist and devout Pentecostalist whose near-messianic belief in his destiny to govern has brought Ethiopia to the brink of civil war. They see the Tigray conflict as an old-fashioned power-grab that, once complete, would continue elsewhere.
“If anything, the prime minister for the past two and a half years has been working to enforce the constitution per the mandate he is given, whereas in the past two decades power had been centralised by a clique,” said Abiy’s spokesperson Billene Seyoum, referring to the TPLF. “The prime minister aspires for an Ethiopia that practises a true federalism anchored in democratic principles and the rule of law.
“I see not a good outcome unless the central government has some sort of epiphany and agrees to some kind of national dialogue,” said David Shinn, a former US ambassador to Ethiopia who teaches international affairs at George Washington University.
Source: Financial Digest (financialdigest.net)
Hopefully the former and not the latter.