This archive report was first published on 18 August 2019.
On August 18, 2019, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's year-long tenure in office has been punctuated with reforms and a departure from the inward-looking policies of his predecessors Hailemariam Desalegn and Meles Zenawi.
Abiy's leadership of the ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, which incorporates the Tigray People's Liberation Front, Amhara Democratic Party, Oromo Democratic Party, and the Southern Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement, has been marked by significant changes.
However, the upcoming 2020 elections could test his political staying power. In the 2015 elections, the ruling coalition won all 547 parliamentary seats, with opposition parties winning only one seat in the past two elections.
Opposition parties have complained of barriers to participation, including arrests, harassment, and restrictions on the use of public radio and TV stations to sell their policies. Dr. Abiy has vowed to have credible and open elections in 2020.
Opposition figures, some of whom were released from jail by Abiy or allowed back home from exile, see an election in 2020 as a sure way of expanding free space and taming violence. Last month, the ruling coalition confirmed elections in 2020, but did not state the exact dates.
However, Dr. Abiy has been faced with internal squabbles in the coalition. In June, an attempted coup by a rogue militia in the Amhara region exposed a new security challenge. The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front has ruled the country since 1991, but in the wake of the attempted coup, factions emerged in the coalition, taking on ethnic leanings.
Traditionally, the Tigray faction ran the affairs of the coalition, despite being the minority. Dr. Abiy's Oromo faction represents a national population estimated at around 60 million.
