The announcement came with the clinical precision of a government press release: Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's Prosperity Party had won a landslide in Ethiopia's general election. But on the streets of Addis Ababa, the mood was less triumphant, more taut with apprehension. This isn't a story about ballot boxes and percentages. It's about the human cost of political dominance in a country still nursing wounds from a brutal two-year war.
For the millions who voted, the election was supposed to be a step towards normalisation. Yet the result, which gives Abiy near-total control of parliament, has reignited fears of a new conflict. In Tigray, the northern region that suffered famine and bombardment in the recent civil war, there was no vote. The international community, which had hoped for a unifying moment, now watches with dread as the prime minister's mandate strengthens.
The cultural shift here is palpable. Ethiopians, particularly the young and urban, had once embraced Abiy as a reformer, a man of peace who won the Nobel Prize. But that narrative has soured. The election, conducted under a state of emergency and with large swathes of the country off-limits to independent observers, feels less like a celebration of democracy and more like a consolidation of power.
On the ground, the divisions are raw. In the markets of Addis, conversations are hushed. People speak of relatives in Tigray who remain unaccounted for. There is a sense of collective exhaustion, a weariness that comes from living through a conflict that the world barely noticed. The landslide, for many, is not a victory but a warning.
Class dynamics also play a role. The wealthy and connected, those who can afford to move money offshore or secure visas for Europe, are quietly making contingency plans. The poor, the majority, have no such luxury. They are left to wonder: will the government's focus on central authority mean more neglect for the regions, more hunger, more displacement?
The psychology of this moment is complex. There is fear, yes. But also a strange, grim acceptance. Ethiopians have endured empires, famines, and wars. They trust their resilience more than their leaders. The question now is whether that resilience will be tested again.
What happens next depends on whether Abiy chooses to use his mandate as a tool for reconciliation or a weapon for retribution. The signs so far are not comforting. The government has already shut down independent media and arrested opposition figures. The international response has been muted, too focused on other crises to pay attention to a country that many in the West have forgotten.
For the average Ethiopian, life will go on. Bread will be baked, children will go to school, and the eternal optimism of the human spirit will persist. But beneath it all, there is a tremor. A small, quiet fear that the peace they have held onto is a fragile thing, and that the landslide may have just buried any hope of a genuine, lasting settlement.
This is the human cost of politics. It is the price paid not by those in power, but by those who must live with the consequences. In Ethiopia, that price may be about to go up.
