Leadership Crisis Keeps Ethiopia in Bloodbath

Not even his supporters know what the guy has in his mind. Everything he does is to survive the day.  No vision, no political philosophy, no direction. It's chaos after chaos, bloodbath after bloodbath. Abiy doesn't seem to care as long as it's not close to his palace. 

How and why the man who promised to fix it all catastrophically failed. 

On Feb 4th 2023, at least 40 people were shot dead by regional ethnic troops in a church in the town of Shashemene in the restive Oromo province. The town saw some of the worst religious violence in 2020 after the assassination of singer Hachalu Hundessa. The violence is part of the ongoing civil war the country sank in after the 2015 fake TPLF elections. Abiy Ahmed's rise in 2018 gave hope but the optimism quickly faded as the PM struggled to contain the chaos. 

After five years, most people believe Abiy is tired, incapable or deliberately keeping the bloodbath to continue as a means of consolidating power. We may differ on the interpretation, but we agree Ethiopia is in a seriously dangerous leadership crisis.  

The civil war shows no signs of end in the near future. In the last five years, over a million have died. 

What do we mean by leadership crisis? 

After five years at the helm, no one knows what Abiy Ahmed and his party PP want to achieve in Ethiopia. Political leaders who come to power around the globe do two things. They either build (maintain) democracies or stable dictatorships based on some governing model and ideology that keep their popular base in power for long. Abiy Ahmed and his PP do not belong to any of these. 

Democracies around the world

If you look at model democracies around the world, they're built by free citizens and institutions who protect that democracy until the end or by the will and determination of those who got the power. 

For the first criteria in Ethiopia, citizens are not free or independent from state power. They have no leverage on the government. Urban citizens do not own their houses and businesses. Their employment or livelihoods depend on the government who is the major employer and to get that job, you must be loyal to whoever is in power. 

Farmers in rural Ethiopia are even worse. They're almost like slaves of the government and the cadres of the ruling party as land & fertilizers are weapons of the government. There is no line between the ruling party (PP) and the state.

Abiy promised to liberalize the economy and land policy to appear as a reformer to international observers. There have been some cosmetic changes, but the basics remain the same as TPLF/Dergue economies.

 

Independent institutions are under assault. When Abiy thought he has defeated his major rival TPLF, he turned his war on the ancient Orthodox Church, one of the long running independent institutions in the country. 

The state distancing itself from the church or other religious institutions could have served as a foundation for democracy. Instead, Abiy imposed himself on every religious institution in Ethiopia. First, he took side against the current patriarch Abune Mathias by propping up the late patriarch Abune Merkorios in 2018. Bringing the late Merkorios home from exile had a political mission. He didn't do it out of care for the church's unity. 

His attempt to divide and assert his will on the church using the formerly exiled bishops didn't work. The late patriarch used to frequent his palace for photo, but he never rose up against Abune Mathias as Abiy hoped. Even during the TPLF war, church fathers may have had some discomfort with Abune Mathias on the way he was recording pro-TPLF videos in secret and release them through hostile media groups, but they understood the plot to keep the church divided and they reinforced their unity behind Abune Mathias. They put the church before their ego.

Same divide and conquer approach were tired before with other institutions like forming a new council of protestant church associations that directly reports to the prime minister. And also replacing the long running Islamic council head by a new one with ties to his regional Oromo PP.

Other social institutions like Edir, Ekub (traditional banking) are in the eyes of his cadres. 

The reform in the security sector was out of necessity to protect himself from the inevitable TPLF war. It wasn't even a reform. It was just purging TPLF's structure and replacing it by like for like people from his party. Most of those at the backbone of the security apparatus are non-Tigray EPRDF/EPDM remnants not new blood recruited from the current generation. The popular question in Ethiopia was not replacing one ethnic hegemony by one or two ethnic groups.

Now the promised constitutional and administrative reform is a distant dream as his party and state media are recycling outdated TPLF/EPRDF propaganda as a new philosophy. There isn't any will to push for constitutional reforms that promote democratic elections, independent institutions and citizens. Every talk in the state structure is the boring "Biltsigna Biltsigna" the name of the ruling party which also means Prosperity, without doing a single thing what prosperous nations of the world have done. 

Stable dictatorships 

Stable dictatorships in the eastern hemisphere and other parts of the world are led by skilled autocrats and competent cadre structures even if they're one man or one-party rules. All the killers, the Maoes, the Stalins had or have strong personal skills that built strong economies and militaries. Rule of law was enforced on everyone. Stalin killed more in his native region than other USSR republics. These autocrats transformed their nations into superpowers because they were led by competent and determined leaders. They had governing ideologies, rules, laws etc. 

Abiy & his recycled-EPRDF (PP) do not possess those skills. Abiy won TPLF's war on the back of pro-democracy Ethiopian nationalists and Eritrean army. In fact, his intellectual deficiencies had complicated the war, prolonged it and turned into an all-out civil war. His PP cadres were ready to welcome back TPLF when the rebels reached northern Shoa. The rebels in his own Oromo party were hand in hand with TPLF conducting major operations in oromia region.

The bare minimum for a stable dictatorship even by standards of EPRDF & Eritrean rulers is law and order. Abiy and PP have replaced rule of law by lawlessness and violence. His cadres are more corrupt than TPLF. The level of government sponsored chaos and violence is scary. 

Things are worse in his native province Oromo. Legally registered political parties and leaders have been bragging about two regimes in Oromiya, PP's regime and their shadow regime. They openly call for violence on the national army (which is a crime of terrorism by existing laws) with impunity. He radicalized moderate Ethiopians who selflessly supported him throughout the five years.

Neither opponents nor his supporters know what the guy has in his minds. Everything he does is to survive the day.  No vision, no political philosophy, no direction. It's chaos after chaos, bloodbath after bloodbath. Abiy doesn't seem to care as long as he's not personally affected. Thats not a sign of a healthy person.