The headlines trumpet a decisive win for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party, but scratch the surface and you find a nation holding its breath. In the volatile region of Tigray, where a devastating two-year civil war only recently ended, the ballot box feels less like a democratic exercise and more like a loaded weapon.
On the streets of Addis Ababa, the mood is not triumphant but tense. Shopkeepers pull down their shutters early. Taxi drivers whisper about checkpoints and roadblocks. The election, billed as a step toward stability, has instead exposed the deep fractures running through Ethiopian society. In Tigray, voter turnout was negligible amid a boycott and ongoing security concerns. The message from the north is clear: this victory is not ours.
Abiy, once hailed as a reformer and Nobel Peace Prize winner, now presides over a country where ethnic violence simmers beneath the surface. The Amhara region, an erstwhile ally, has turned restive, with armed groups challenging federal authority. The Oromo, the largest ethnic group, feel marginalised despite the prime minister’s own Oromo heritage. It is a classic tale of power centralisation: the more you try to hold, the more slips through your fingers.
For ordinary Ethiopians, the election result changes little. They still queue for bread, still fear the knock on the door at night. The human cost of this political ‘landslide’ is measured not in votes but in lives uprooted, in businesses abandoned, in the quiet desperation of a people who have seen their country come apart at the seams.
What we are witnessing is not just an election but a cultural shift. The old Ethiopia, with its myth of unity, is gone. In its place is a patchwork of rival loyalties, each demanding its own piece of the national cake. The Prosperity Party may have won the ballot, but it has yet to win the peace. And until it addresses the grievances that fuel conflict, its landslide will remain a hollow victory.
As I watched the news come in from a café in the capital, the irony was palpable. Here was a government celebrating a democratic mandate while the rights of millions to participate were curtailed or ignored. This is the reality of modern Ethiopia: a democracy in name, but a battle for survival in practice.
The question now is not whether Abiy can govern, but whether the country can hold together. The world watches, but it is Ethiopians who will pay the price. And that price, as always, is paid in blood and tears.
