June 2021

On 21 June 2021, the people of Ethiopia went to the polls to vote in the first free and fair elections in the country’s history. Originally scheduled for 29 August 2020, the elections were postponed by the sitting Parliament in May 2020 (an action that is technically unconstitutional, but was upheld by the Supreme Court--much to the chagrin of opposition groups and democratic activists, who accused PM Abiy Ahmed of backsliding on his own promises of democratic reform) to an indefinite point in 2021. Once the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine effectively ended the pandemic in early 2021, the sitting Parliament agreed to schedule elections for June 2021, giving both the opposition and the government an ample chance to campaign in the post-COVID world.

The 2021 election is seen by most analysts as a referendum on the Ahmed administration’s handling of the transition to democracy, the system of ethnic federalism in Ethiopia, and the Ahmed administration’s handling of the ethnic conflicts that have wracked Ethiopia over the last half decade. It is also noteworthy for the fact that it is the first election in Ethiopian history that will not feature the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the conglomeration of ethnic federalist parties which has dominated Ethiopian politics since the collapse of the Derg in 1991.

Every single office in Ethiopia is up for election, from the village councils to the state governments to the Parliament. The parties contesting the election are as follows:

Prosperity Party (PP)

Prosperity Party (PP) is the successor party of the EPRDF, formed when Prime Minister and EPRDF chairman Abiy Ahmed merged the constituent regional parties of the EPRDF into a new, countrywide party in December 2019. PP has inherited the party apparatus of the largest members of the EPRDF, including the Oromo Democratic Party, Amhara Democratic Party, Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement, as well as several smaller regional parties that were previously frozen out of the ruling EPRDF coalition, including the Benishangul-Gumuz People’s Democratic Unity Front, Ethiopian Somali People’s Democratic Party, Gambela People’s Democratic Movement, and the Hareri National League. Given the size of this merger, the PP has considerable sway in almost every region of Ethiopia with the notable exception of Tigray (the Tigrayan People’s Revolutionary Front, the traditionally dominant member of the EPRDF, refused to join the PP and will be standing as an independent party in the 2021 elections), and is expected by almost everyone to emerge victorious on the federal level. The greater question is how PP will fare on the regional level, (especially in the two largest regions, Amhara and Oromia, where it may be beaten out by regional parties), and how large their majority will be.

PP’s platform argues against expanding the system of ethnic federalism (though it is notably not anti-Federalist), instead focusing on the creation of an Ethiopian national identity (Ethiopiawinet) that it hopes will tie together the over 80 ethnic groups that call Ethiopia home. Settling somewhere between the center and center-left, Prosperity Party advocates for economic and political liberalism, including the expansion of the rule of law and civil rights and the privatization of swaths of the Ethiopian economy.

Ethiopian Federal Democratic Unity Forum (Medrek)

The Ethiopian Federal Democratic Unity Forum (better known as Medrek, which is derived from the Amharic acronym) is a political coalition comprised of several pro-democracy, pro-federalist opposition groups from the 2000s and 2010s, including the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement, the Somali Democratic Alliance Forces, Union of Tigrians for Democracy and Sovereignty, the Oromo People’s Congress, the Sidama Liberation Movement, the Gedeo People’s Liberation Front, and the Ethiopian Social Democratic Party. In terms of vote share, Medrek is the most successful opposition party in Ethiopian history, having received 30 percent of the vote in the 2010 General Election, but only one seat due to repression by the ruling EPRDF and the FPTP electoral system.

Medrek advocates for an expansion of the system of ethnic federalism in Ethiopia, including the addition of Afan Oromo, Tigrinya, and Somali as official working languages in Ethiopia (currently the only working language is Amharic); the secession of the Gedeo Zone from the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (following in the footsteps of the Sidama Zone, which seceded from the SNNPR and became its own federal state in 2019); and the further devolution of powers to the states of Ethiopia. Generally speaking, Medrek’s policies are left/center-left. Medrek is one of the three parties that can be considered “national” in this election, and will be contesting seats throughout Ethiopia (though most of its focus will be on the SNNPR, Addis Ababa, Oromia, and Somali).

Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice

Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice (ECFSJ) is a national political party in Ethiopia formed by the merger of formerly illegal democratic opposition groups like Patriotic Ginbot 7, Ethiopian Democratic Party, All-Ethiopian Democratic Party, Semayawi Party, New Generation Party, Gambella Regional Movement, ye-Ethiopia Ra’iy Party, and Unity for Democracy and Justice. This will be the first election contested by the ECFSJ, with most of its leaders having been forced into exile by the EPRDF and only now returning under the Ahmed administration’s policy of political amnesty.

ECFSJ is generally considered the most right-wing of the three national parties, advocating for large scale privatization (including the privatization of land--currently, all land in Ethiopia is owned by the federal government, which leases it out to tenants). While also supporting Prosperity Party’s program of Ethiopiawinet, ECFSJ advocates for extensive reforms to the Ethiopian constitution, including transforming the upper house of Parliament, the House of Federation, into a true legislative body (rather than the glorified oversight council it is right now).

Tigray People’s Liberation Front

The de facto leaders of Ethiopia as the primary party of the EPRDF between 1991 and 2018, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has since fallen from grace on the national stage, though it remains utterly dominant in the Tigray region. Originally a Marxist-Leninist/Hoxhaist Party, the TPLF has become more moderate since the 1990s, though it is still certainly the most left-wing party in Ethiopian politics.

The dominance of the TPLF in Tigray is difficult to overstate, with the party expected to win all 38 of the region’s constituencies and a supermajority in its regional parliament. This has led the party to butt heads with Prosperity Party and the Ethiopian Federal Government--when the federal government ordered all 2020 elections postponed due to COVID-19, the TPLF dissented and held regional elections in Tigray anyway, in which they won 98 percent of the vote. These elections were deemed illegal by the Ahmed administration, leading to a major internal power struggle which ended with the federal government threatening to send troops into Tigray to unseat the regional government. Deciding that this would go, uh, poorly, the TPLF agreed to hold new elections in 2021.

The TPLF is strongly in favor of the federal system in Ethiopia, and has joined with many of the other regional parties (see below) to form the Federalist Front alliance group in Parliament.

Oromo Liberation Front

Established in 1973, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) started as a secessionist movement that waged a decades-long independence struggle against the Derg and, later, the EPRDF. Having reached a peace agreement with the Ahmed administration in 2018 (following a series of defeats and a general trend towards disarmament in through the 2000s and 2010s), the once-exiled and arrested leaders of the OLF have been released and will be allowed to stand in the 2021 elections. While the once strictly secessionist party has moderated somewhat, it still serves as perhaps the greatest bulwark against Ethiopian Nationalism, arguing strongly for ethnic federalism, Oromo rights, and, in the most extreme cases, Oromo hegemony (owing to their status as the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia).

While the OLF is by no means expected to earn a majority in Parliament (they don’t appeal to anyone who isn’t Oromo), there is a considerable chance for them to either deny the Prosperity Party a majority in the Oromia state legislature--or perhaps even seize the majority themselves. Either would be a major stumbling block for the Prosperity Party even if they manage to win the federal majority, as the OLF could use the centrality of the Oromia Region (which forms the backbone of Ethiopia’s territory and its economic importance to frustrate any attempts by the Prosperity Party to centralize power in the federal government. On the national level, the OLF has joined the Federalist Front with the other major, independent regional parties.

National Movement of Amhara

Probably the smallest of the regional parties (as measured by their power in their respective ethnic region), the National Movement of Amhara, or NaMA, is an Amhara nationalist group contesting elections in the Amhara region. Their platform focuses primarily on Amhara rights, including efforts to retake areas that they view as “traditionally Amhara” that are currently part of other states in Ethiopia. Politically, the opinions of NaMA range from expanded Amhara rights in the ethnic federalist system of Ethiopia to complete Amhara secession (more extreme elements of the party were accused of involvement in the attempted 2019 coup d’état in Amhara Region, where Amhara nationalists hoped to use the ouster of the TPLF from power to regain historically Amhara regions from Tigray Region. Since NaMA is still relatively young and the Amhara Region is a traditional stronghold of EPDRF/Prosperity Party through the Amhara Democratic Party, it is not expected to do too well on the national level, though it will likely win some seats.

Ogaden National Liberation Front

Another rebel-group-turned-political-party, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) is a Somali nationalist party that argues for the secession of the Somali Region of Ethiopia to rejoin neighboring Somalia. The ONLF was the primary force in the two decade long Ogaden Insurgency, but have since laid down their arms following a peace agreement with the central government in 2018.

Unlike the other regionalist parties in the election, the ONLF is primarily a secessionist party, with a much smaller minority arguing for increased Somali rights in Ethiopia. The ONLF has joined with the Federalist Front for the 2021 elections, but is unlikely to win many seats due to the dominance of the Ethiopian Somali People’s Democratic Party (which merged into the Prosperity Party).

2021 House of Peoples’ Representatives

Voter Turnout: 95.3% ( 2.1%)

Seizing an independent majority in the House of Peoples’ Representatives based on dominant performances in the smaller regions of Ethiopia, the Prosperity Party and Dr. Abiy Ahmed have staved off the challenges posed by the ethnic federalist and ethnic separatist electoral movements of Ethiopia. Independent UN observers have verified the elections as free and fair (though they noted violence and voter intimidation by non-state actors in Tigray, Oromia, and Amhara).

On the regional level, the Prosperity Party managed to narrowly win a majority of the seats in the Oromia Region despite earning only a plurality of the votes (thanks to vote splitting between Medrek and the OLF). While their majority here is fragile, and could be lost in 2025 if PP further alienates Oromos, it does give PP a freer hand in governance in the next four or five years.

The one major victory for the ethnic federalist movement came in the Gedeo Zone, where the Gedeo People’s Liberation Front, a constituent member of Medrek arguing for self-determination for the Gedeo people, managed to seize almost all of the seats in the woreda. Most analysts suspect the Gedeo Zone, which became geographically separated from the rest of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region following the secession of Sidama in 2019, to hold its own independence referendum sometime in the next few years, which will likely be successful (creating Ethiopia’s 11th state).