The Election of the Wheat Sheaf An Election Already Decided Before the Ballots Are Cast?

The Old Woman Who Understood the Whole Election

The old woman spoke quietly.

There was no anger in her voice. No theatrical outrage. Only the calm resignation of someone who had lived long enough to watch history repeat itself in different clothes.

“We attended the meeting,” she said. “They told us to vote for the wheat sheaf. That should be easy because there are no other signs.”

Those nearby laughed. Not because the statement was humorous. Because it felt painfully true.

An Election That May Not Even Exist in Much of the Country

The election was only days away.

Yet, across large parts of Ethiopia, people increasingly spoke not about who might win but whether an election was even taking place in any meaningful sense.

In many localities of western Oromia, residents reportedly say they have been openly told there will effectively be no election. Similar sentiments emerge from parts of southern and eastern Oromia.

All of Tigray — viewed by many observers as a de facto quasi-independent entity following years of conflict and political divergence — and large parts of the Amhara region also remain outside normal electoral conditions.

• Conflict zones.
• Administrative disruption.
• Security uncertainty.

Areas where normal political activity itself has become difficult.

A National Vote Without National Conditions

The irony is difficult to ignore.

The country is preparing for a national election while substantial territories appear unable to participate under ordinary electoral conditions.

Eight weeks earlier, critics had already outlined seven reasons why no credible electoral process could emerge under such circumstances. Their argument was blunt: even a staged election requires minimum conditions to stage the illusion convincingly, and those conditions themselves no longer exist.

• Yet the campaign continues.
• The theater continues.
• The choreography continues.

And thus another question begins to emerge:

• Why?
• Why bother at all?

Campaigning Without Persuasion

Officially, what is happening is called campaigning.

Yet increasingly little resembles campaigning in its ordinary democratic meaning.

• Campaigning suggests persuasion.
• Competing manifestos.
• Rival visions.
• Political debate.
• Citizens weighing alternatives.

But in locality after locality, a different pattern appears to be unfolding exclusive to the ruling party.

• Markets reportedly pause.
• Roads are diverted.
• Public gatherings are assembled.
• Citizens are instructed to attend.

The Civic Liturgy of the Wheat Sheaf

Party operatives stand before crowds asking ritualized questions.

“What sign are you voting for?”

The crowd responds: “The wheat sheaf!”

“What date are you voting for the wheat sheaf?”

Again, comes the collective answer. The exchange repeats. Over and over. Until it begins to resemble less a political campaign and more a civic liturgy.

The Threat That Does Not Need Explanation

Then comes the warning.

“We know how to find out if you do not vote correctly; You have been warned.”

Nobody explains how. They do not need to. Fear often works most effectively when left undefined.

The Harvest of Compliance

The wheat sheaf — symbol of the ruling Prosperity Party — carries imagery associated with abundance, harvest, productivity, and prosperity.

Yet another harvest seems to be taking place beneath the symbolism. The harvesting of compliance. The cultivation of inevitability.

Citizens repeatedly exposed to one answer until alternatives slowly disappear from public imagination.

“There Are No Other Signs”

The old woman’s observation suddenly acquires deeper meaning: “There are no other signs.”

Perhaps she was not merely referring to the ballot paper. Perhaps she meant something larger.

No visible alternatives. No equivalent presence. No competing machinery. No equal organizational reach. No comparable access to state infrastructure.

A Race Where Only One Runner Has the State

How could opposition parties possibly compete?

• They possess no state apparatus.
• No administrative chain reaching villages.
• No government vehicles.
• No local bureaucracy.
• No ability to halt markets.
• No authority to divert roads.
• No capacity to summon entire communities.

The distinction between state and campaign increasingly appears blurred. Government structures seem to function as campaign logistics. The race began long before others reached the stadium.

Why Campaign When Victory Is Presumed?

And yet the larger paradox remains. If victory is already assured, why campaign at all?

If the outcome is already known, why mobilize so aggressively?

• Why the urgency?
• Why the assemblies?
• Why the repeated messaging?
• Why the spectacle?

When Elections Become Displays of Power

One possible answer is uncomfortable. Perhaps elections in such systems serve a purpose different from choosing leaders.

• Perhaps they exist to display power.
• The objective is not uncertainty.
• It is demonstration.
• The election ceases to be a contest and becomes affirmation.
• Participation itself becomes evidence.
• Attendance becomes symbolism.
• Visibility becomes legitimacy.

The performance matters more than competition. The ritual matters more than persuasion.

Religion Drawn Into the Electoral Theater

The optics increasingly drift into the surreal. Religious institutions appear drawn into the process. Reports emerge of faith communities being told to pray for the success of the ruling establishment.

Images circulate of Orthodox clergy displaying umbrellas bearing ruling party insignia. Politics and sacred symbolism begin occupying the same visual frame.

• Even seasoned observers pause.
• The images feel jarring.
• Cringe-inducing.
• Difficult to reconcile with contemporary democratic norms.

One almost imagines future historians encountering such photographs and assuming satire. Yet they are real. Reality itself has become surreal.

The Result Before the Vote

The election day has not yet arrived with only days to go to 1st of June 2026. Yet many already speak as though it has already happened.

Voting merely awaits administrative execution. The result precedes the process. The destination exists before the journey. The script appears written before actors enter the stage.

Citizens will still queue. Ballots will still be cast. Boxes will still be counted. Announcements will still be made. Perhaps observers will still arrive. Perhaps foreign journalists will still report.

Is the Performance Meant for Foreign Eyes?

But another question now hangs over everything.

• Is this exercise partly intended for them?
• For foreign media?
• For diplomatic audiences?
• For external validation?
• To preserve the optics of electoral continuity?
• To maintain the language of democratic process?
• To demonstrate procedural normality despite extraordinary conditions?

What Exactly Remains?

Because if extensive territories effectively have no election, if conflict regions remain excluded, if outcomes are widely presumed in advance, then what exactly remains?

• An election?
• A mandate?
• Or political theater performed for domestic and international consumption?

The earlier analysis argued that this was no longer simply an election vulnerable to manipulation. It was an election struggling even to simulate normal electoral conditions convincingly. That observation feels increasingly difficult to dismiss.

When Alternatives Disappear

The old woman had already answered the entire question without realizing it: “We were told to vote for the wheat sheaf.”

Then she smiled gently. “That should be easy.”

Because there were no other signs. And perhaps therein lies the deeper tragedy. The problem is not merely coercion. History has known coercion. The greater danger is when alternatives disappear so completely that people stop expecting them. When inevitability becomes normalized. When citizens cease asking who should govern and begin asking only how the result will be announced.

The Wheat Sheaf as a Metaphor

At that point elections no longer determine power. They narrate it. And the wheat sheaf becomes not merely a party symbol. It becomes a metaphor.

• For inevitability.
• For ritual.

For an election many believe concluded long before voting day arrived.

The Old Woman’s Verdict

In the end, perhaps the entire election was summarized not by politicians, observers, analysts, or official statements, but by the quiet words of an old woman standing among ordinary citizens.

“They told us to vote for the wheat sheaf. That should be easy because there are no other signs.”

Those few words speak volumes. Think of how democracy is conducted in the 21st century in the empire state of Ethiopia.

They capture not merely the atmosphere surrounding this election, but the deeper unease many Ethiopians feel about the entire exercise.

An election increasingly viewed as fake because, for many, it has long ceased to be an open question. It is widely regarded as a foregone conclusion that the ruling Prosperity Party regime of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed will retain power, whatever the circumstances and whatever the cost.

• Fake because many have come to regard the democratic ideal itself as fundamentally alien to the historical political culture of the Ethiopian empire-state — where power has more often been inherited, seized, defended, negotiated, or imposed than genuinely contested and peacefully transferred.
• Fake because history itself appears to offer a troubling pattern.

No incumbent regime in Ethiopia existed as having voluntarily relinquished power through a genuinely competitive democratic process.

Regimes collapsed. So-called governments were overthrown. Power changed hands.

But not through the ordinary democratic rhythm of incumbents peacefully accepting electoral defeat.

And if history becomes expectation, expectation becomes inevitability. Perhaps that is the deepest concern of all.

For when citizens no longer ask who may win, but merely how victory will be announced, elections cease to determine power.

They merely narrate it.

References

1. Elemoo Qilxuu and Kumaa Daadhii, 7 Reasons Why There Can Be No Credible Electoral Process in an Empire Disintegrating Before Our Eyes, 30 March 2026, OROMIA TODAY.
2. Kumaa Daadhii, Much Ado About Nothing—The Illusion of Elections in Oromia and Ethiopia, 23 March 2026, OROMIA TODAY.