‘Game over’? Abiy Ahmed, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front and Ethiopia’s political crisis

On 15 February 2018, Hailemariam Desalegn, Ethiopia’s beleaguered prime minister, resigned. Bowing to pressure from within his own party,¹ the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), Hailemariam declared that he hoped to facilitate an end to ‘unrest and political crisis’ in the country by leaving the national stage.² If Hailemariam’s departure had taken observers by surprise, however, what was to follow would defy all predictions. His successor, Abiy Ahmed—whose elevation was unanticipated even by many within the EPRDF Politburo itself³—has, since his April 2018 inauguration, presided over a dramatic set of iconoclastic policy shifts. Perhaps most high profile amongst these has been the securing of a...