Abiy Ahmed Archives – OROMIA TODAY

Article | Editorial | Politics
The Election of the Wheat SheafAn Election Already Decided Before the Ballots Are Cast?
By OT Editorial Posted on2026-05-272026-05-27
As Ethiopia approaches the 2026 election, questions increasingly shift from who will win to whether meaningful electoral conditions exist at all. With large territories remaining outside normal voting conditions, state machinery openly intertwined with campaigning, and outcomes widely presumed in advance, the election raises deeper questions about democratic legitimacy and political ritual. In what some critics describe as the modern election of the wheat sheaf, the central issue is no longer competition among alternatives, but whether the process serves genuine choice, predetermined confirmation, or merely the optics of electoral continuity.
Read More The Election of the Wheat SheafAn Election Already Decided Before the Ballots Are Cast?
Article | Op-Ed | Politics
Regression Preference Syndrome: Debunking the Regressive Tendency in Ethiopian Politics
By Roobaa Hawaas (MA, Psychology) Posted on2026-05-172026-05-17
Regression Preference Syndrome is proposed as a political-psychological framework explaining Ethiopia's recurring tendency to favor historical rollback over incremental democratic progress. Using contemporary examples from autocratic rule, internal wars, unresolved national questions, maritime access discourse, and hard-power politics, the article argues that regression often appears psychologically easier than reform. It calls for Ethiopia to reject destructive coercive approaches, embrace soft power and negotiated settlements, and pursue gradual democratic progress instead of disruptive retrogressive steps that risk repeating historical cycles.
Read More Regression Preference Syndrome: Debunking the Regressive Tendency in Ethiopian Politics
Article | Op-Ed | Politics
Ethiopia Forward to the Past: The Politics of Nostalgia and the “Menelik Syndrome”
By Yadessa Guma (PhD, Anthropology) Posted on2026-04-282026-04-28
“Menelik Syndrome” captures a recurring pattern in Ethiopia’s political imagination: the selective revival of an idealized imperial past as a solution to present crises. Framed around the legacy of Menelik II, it elevates symbols of unity, strength, and state consolidation while downplaying the coercive foundations on which that unity was built. In contemporary discourse, this manifests in calls to “restore Ethiopia’s past glory”—a narrative that resonates emotionally but risks reopening unresolved historical contradictions. As a political lens, Menelik Syndrome helps explain how nostalgia, when filtered through power, can shape national identity, influence policy direction, and—paradoxically—intensify fragmentation rather than resolve it.
Read More Ethiopia Forward to the Past: The Politics of Nostalgia and the “Menelik Syndrome”
Article | Commentary | Opinion | Politics
One Song, Five Messages
By Elemoo Qilxuu (MA, Political Science) Posted on2026-04-212026-04-21
In just days, one song by Tewodros "Teddy Afro" Kassahun has ignited a firestorm—revealing not unity, but multiple Ethiopias speaking past each other. What appears as controversy is, in truth, a deeper collision of meanings shaped by power, history, identity, and memory. This article unpacks the layered messages behind the moment, exposing how one song became a prism through which a fractured empire sees itself.
Read More One Song, Five Messages
Article | Community | Human Rights | Politics | ⏭
Ambo: Cruelty in Plain Sight — Violence, Impunity, and the Political Crisis in Oromia
By Yadessa Guma (PhD, Anthropology) Posted on2026-04-162026-04-16
In Ambo, a shocking act of violence against young adults exposes more than individual cruelty—it reveals a growing pattern of impunity and normalized abuse across Oromia. What appears as a single incident reflects a deeper crisis, where violence is increasingly visible, accountability is absent, and fear is woven into daily life. As informal actors and unchecked forces shape events on the ground, the question is no longer whether this is isolated, but how far the pattern extends.
Read More Ambo: Cruelty in Plain Sight — Violence, Impunity, and the Political Crisis in Oromia
Article | Politics
7 Reasons Why There Can Be No Credible Electoral Process in an Empire Disintegrating Before Our Eyes
By Elemoo Qilxuu (MA, Political Science) and Kumaa Daadhii (PhD, Political History) Posted on2026-03-302026-03-29
Even if elections are predetermined, they still require minimum conditions and structures to stage the illusion of democracy. In today’s Ethiopia, those conditions no longer exist. Large parts of Ethiopia are outside regime control, opposition parties participate only to avoid deregistration, insecurity is widespread, and political intimidation is routine. Some regions appear politically detached, actively contemplating a post-Ethiopia political order, and therefore cannot be considered fully participatory in the electoral process. This is no longer an election that can be rigged; it is an election that cannot even be convincingly staged.
Read More 7 Reasons Why There Can Be No Credible Electoral Process in an Empire Disintegrating Before Our Eyes
Editorial | Politics | ⏭
The Day Monetary Policy Joined the Ruling PartyIn Ethiopia, even institutional neutrality has stopped pretending
By OT Editorial Posted on2026-02-242026-02-24
When a central bank governor campaigns for a ruling political party, or any political party for that matter, Monetary Policy ceases to be an economic instrument and becomes a political one. In any democracy that still maintains a pretense of institutional order, this would be a red card—immediate, unquestionable, and final. A resignation would follow within hours. Parliamentary inquiries would begin. Constitutional lawyers would sharpen their knives. Markets would twitch. Not in Ethiopia. It barely interrupts the broadcast of a central bank governor campaigning on behalf of the ruling party.
Read More The Day Monetary Policy Joined the Ruling PartyIn Ethiopia, even institutional neutrality has stopped pretending
Article | Commentary | ⏭
Wallaga and the Politics of FaçadeEight Years of Rhetoric, War, and Recalibration
By Yadessa Guma (PhD, Anthropology) Posted on2026-02-222026-02-21
1 Comment
Eight years after branding Wallaga as too dangerous to visit, Ethiopia’s leadership now stages high-profile tours through a region devastated by war, displacement, and militarization. This article examines how early political rhetoric securitized Wallaga, normalized extraordinary violence, and reshaped policy under the guise of reform. By tracing the arc from fabricated fear to choreographed presence, it asks a hard question: does visibility signal stabilization—or merely a recalibrated façade masking unresolved brutality?
Read More Wallaga and the Politics of FaçadeEight Years of Rhetoric, War, and Recalibration
Article | Op-Ed | Opinion | Politics | ⏭
The Policy of Lying: How Power Is Sustained by Fabrication
By Elemoo Qilxuu (MA, Political Science) and Roobaa Hawaas (MA, Psychology) Posted on2026-02-062026-02-05
Ethiopia has crossed a moral and political threshold. Lying is no longer an occasional deviation but a governing method. From the fabricated pretext of the Tigray war to the attempted rewriting of Eritrea’s role—publicly rebutted by Gedu Andargachew—the pattern is unmistakable. When power substitutes for truth, institutions collapse, Parliament applauds falsehood, and citizens are conditioned to accept governance without reality. This is not political spin; it is rule by fabrication.
Read More The Policy of Lying: How Power Is Sustained by Fabrication
Article | Opinion | Politics | ⏭
The PP Regime Now Has the Accolade: No Other Ethiopian Regime Has Acted Against the Oromo People So Intensely in Such a Short Time
By Kumaa Daadhii (PhD, Political History) and Olii Boran (PhD, Sociology) Posted on2026-02-022026-02-01
3 Comments
The inauguration of the Shebele Resort near Jijigaa under the PP regime of PM Abiy Ahmed is more than a development event; it is a political statement. Held without Oromo representation in an Oromo city, and amid ongoing violence in eastern Oromia, the ceremony signals the normalization of exclusion and the quiet ratification of a long-contested administrative arrangement. What was once presented as a temporary “loan” of Jijigaa has now hardened into permanent political appropriation, with profound consequences for constitutional order and regional stability.
Read More The PP Regime Now Has the Accolade: No Other Ethiopian Regime Has Acted Against the Oromo People So Intensely in Such a Short Time
Editorial | Politics | ⏭
The Oromia Administration: Silence, Not Governance
By OT Editorial Posted on2026-01-282026-01-28
The Oromia Administration is conspicuously absent as Oromia faces multi-front aggression, mass dispossession, and deepening corruption. From Somali regional incursions in the east—politically encouraged by president Mustafe Mohammed Omer—to Amhara Fano violence in the west and north east, and forced evictions in central Oromia, silence has become policy. This editorial argues the Oromia Administration is not merely failing, but enabling a proxy-war strategy in which Oromia must be weakened for the Ethiopian empire to endure.
Read More The Oromia Administration: Silence, Not Governance
Editorial | Politics | ⏭
Math Meets PP Myth No. 5: When 12 Billion Birr GERD Contributions Become Insults
By OT Editorial Posted on2026-01-232026-01-23
In this fifth installment of Math Meets PP Myth, the dismissal of 12 billion birr as “insignificant” reveals more than numerical abuse. It exposes a psychology of power that cannot tolerate shared ownership. Leaders secure in legitimacy thank contributors; insecure ones belittle them. Reducing citizens to percentages is not economic analysis—it is political conditioning, preparing the public to accept exclusion, silence, and hierarchy under the guise of math.
Read More Math Meets PP Myth No. 5: When 12 Billion Birr GERD Contributions Become Insults
Op-Ed | Politics | ⏭
How Will Medemer Be Remembered?
By Kumaa Daadhii (PhD, Political History) Posted on2026-01-072026-01-07
Medemer will not be remembered by its promises but by its consequences. Branded as a "doctrine" of unity, Medemer instead presided over spectacle development confined to the capital, permanent war governance, economic unraveling, normalized brutality, and systematic evictions of central Oromia. The glitter of street lights masked structural collapse, while fear became an instrument of rule. History is likely to record Medemer not as "addition", but as "subtraction"—of lives, trust, justice, and peoples' unrealized potential.
Read More How Will Medemer Be Remembered?
Editorial | Politics | ⏭
An Empire That Refuses to Learn — When Power Is Reduced to Drawing Lines with Assab Port
By OT Editorial Posted on2026-01-062026-01-06
The delusional redrawing of maps to suggest the annexation of Assab Port is not a harmless provocation but a dangerous rehearsal for an unnecessary war—one that diplomacy can and must avert. History shows who pays when empires test fantasies with force: coerced Oromo youth sent to fight wars they did not choose. The Oromo people have learned from loss, and they reject yet another imperial gamble with their sons and daughters.
Read More An Empire That Refuses to Learn — When Power Is Reduced to Drawing Lines with Assab Port
Editorial | ⏭
Dreaming Out of Sequence: Abiy Ahmed, AI University, and Ethiopia’s Education Crisis
By OT Editorial Posted on2026-01-052026-01-05
The announcement of an AI University at Addis Ababa University’s 75th Anniversary was framed as visionary, yet it exposed a deeper contradiction in Ethiopia’s education crisis. While graduates remain unemployed, schools are closed by insecurity, and academic standards decline, grand AI ambitions risk becoming spectacle rather than substance. This article examines how misplaced sequencing, political psychology, and institutional fragility turn the promise of an AI University into a symbol of imbalance rather than progress.
Read More Dreaming Out of Sequence: Abiy Ahmed, AI University, and Ethiopia’s Education Crisis
Editorial | ⏭
When “Democracy” Applauds an Empire: Why Prime Minister Modi’s Speech Is Deeply Disappointing to Ethiopia’s Oppressed Nations
By OT Editorial Posted on2025-12-172025-12-17
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to Ethiopia’s Parliament was wrapped in warmth and symbolism, but it also echoed a familiar Ethiopianist storyline: a seamless, timeless national narrative that quietly sidesteps conquest, forced assimilation, and the lived realities of Oromo and other oppressed peoples. When the leader of the world’s largest democracy lends prestige to that framing—amid today’s grave human-rights and displacement crises—disappointment is not only understandable, but inevitable.
Read More When “Democracy” Applauds an Empire: Why Prime Minister Modi’s Speech Is Deeply Disappointing to Ethiopia’s Oppressed Nations

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