Reformer faces tough odds, but is not down yet

ETHIOPIA’S prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, is a lucky man. He has survived three attempts to kill or overthrow him in the past year.

Last June, he escaped unhurt in a grenade attack that killed one and wounded scores at a political rally. In October, his office in the capital, Addis Ababa, was surrounded by angry soldiers who threatened to kill him over low pay, but he talked them down.

And recently, he emerged unscathed from an attempted military coup. It was a very serious attempt. In the capital, General Se’are Mekonnen was shot dead by his own bodyguard, as was another general who was visiting his home. Ahmed had made Se’are the chief of staff of the Ethiopian Army, a controversial appointment, only a year before.

At the same time, another of Ahmed’s appointees, Ambachew Mekonnen, the governor of the key Amhara region, and his adviser were murdered in the region’s capital, Bahir Dar. It was clearly a broad plot, but its co-ordination must have been off.

Police are still rounding up suspected plotters. That is a good thing because he is Ethiopia’s best chance of breaking the cycle of tyrannies that has blighted its modern history. It is Africa’s second biggest country (102million people) and one of the world’s fastest growing economies, but its politics has been cursed.

In the past century, it has gone from a medieval monarchy to rule by foreign fascists (it was conquered by Mussolini’s Italy in the 1930s) and then back to an only slightly less medieval tyranny for another 30 years – until a Marxist-led military coup in 1974.

The country is divided between a Christian majority and a big Muslim minority. One of the larger four ethnic groups, the Tigrayans, dominated the military and intelligence services and, therefore, the regime as a whole.

The country’s population growth intensified the land disputes between rival ethnic groups. Since 2015, some three million Ethiopians have become internal refugees, mainly because of struggles over land.

So in April last year, in desperation, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front handed the prime ministership to Ahmed. He is a “child of the party”, which he joined at 15, but he is a reformer who can be all things to all people. His father was Muslim, his mother was Christian. And he is a very modern man. He knew he had to move fast, so he ended the state of emergency and changed almost all the senior military commanders. He appointed a cabinet that was half female, plus women as president and as head of the supreme court.

He released thousands of political prisoners. He freed the media, made the leader of an opposition party head of the electoral board and put her in charge of organising free elections in 2020. He made peace and re-opened the border with Eritrea after 20 years. He he did it in little over a year. And yet, he is in a precarious position. It could not be otherwise. He is trying to free a big, complex, traumatised country from a century of dreadful history and the odds are against him. But he’s not down yet. |

PRIME Minister Abiy Ahmed