Abiy Ahmed's Prosperity Party wins Ethiopia election
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- Ethiopia's Prosperity Party won a comfortable parliamentary majority in this month's elections, keeping PM Abiy Ahmed in office after capturing more than 90 percent of available seats in the 2021 parliamentary vote.
- Abiy Ahmed was appointed prime minister in 2018 following mass protests that toppled the EPRDF coalition, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for ending hostilities with neighboring Eritrea.
- Human rights activists and political opponents accuse Abiy's government of reversing early democratic gains by detaining journalists and shutting down civil society groups, despite his initial releases of political prisoners and unbanning of parties.
- The Fano militia has seized swathes of the countryside in Ethiopia's Amhara region since 2023, while violence persists in Oromia — Abiy's native and most populous region — fueling analyst warnings of renewed unrest.
- Tigray's main political party moved in May to reassert control over the region's political administration in violation of a 2022 peace deal that ended a 2020-2022 civil war that researchers say killed hundreds of thousands of people.
- Ethiopia's electoral board excluded Tigray — one of the country's 12 regions — from this month's elections, citing 'unfavourable conditions,' leaving the region with no vote.
- Abiy's government projects economic growth of over 10 percent in 2026, which it says would be one of the fastest rates in Africa.
Why it matters: The 'comfortable' majority masks a deeply contested mandate: Tigray, one of Ethiopia's 12 regions, was excluded from voting; its ruling party is already breaking the 2022 peace deal; and the Fano militia controls large parts of Amhara. With a third of the country outside the ballot or in active conflict, Abiy's projected 10%+ growth for 2026 rests on a fragile political base.
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