A weeks-long political dialogue in Ethiopia has backed constitutional changes to create a new presidential system that could extend Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s control over the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Abiy, 50, has ruled the Horn of Africa country of 130 million since 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His party won another landslide victory at elections in June, albeit in the midst of a crackdown on the opposition and media.<\/p>\n
That was followed by a long-promised “national dialogue”, in which some 4,000 delegates gathered to discuss the country’s many challenges, including its deep ethnic divides and ongoing insurgencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More than a month of talks ended on August 22 with the delegates overwhelmingly backing plans to combine the office of prime minister and the largely ceremonial presidency into a new “executive presidency”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It could be put before parliament as soon as it reconvenes in October.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most assume that Abiy, who was absent from the dialogue, will get the job if it goes ahead, since this new president will be selected by a parliament packed with his supporters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They say it will be a more unifying role, representing all of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups, compared to the current system in which Abiy is elected as a member of parliament from his Oromia region.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It will create “a more unified country to overcome the challenges the country currently faces”, said Tiglu Melese, secretary-general of parliament’s upper house.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The dialogue also recommended that funding be cut to ethnic-based parties in favour of “national” ones.<\/p>\n
Critics fear all this will allow Abiy to consolidate personal power, as Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan did when he jumped from prime minister to a newly created executive presidency in 2014.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It would only allow the current prime minister to assume the executive presidency while effectively concentrating power in a single individual,” said political analyst Befekadu Hailu.\u00a0<\/p>\n
– Seeking peace –<\/p>\n
Ethiopia faces deep ethnic divides, with armed conflicts ongoing in its two most populous states, Oromia and Amhara, and fears that the 2020-2022 civil war in the northern Tigray region — which killed an estimated 600,000 people — may reignite at any moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Critics say the dialogue — which excluded armed groups and was boycotted by key opposition parties — did little to address these challenges.<\/p>\n
“It cannot ensure the two greatest needs of the country: durable peace and stability, and democratic governance,” said Merera Gudina, chairman of the Caucus of Opposition Parties, which stayed away from the dialogue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The recommendations “should be complemented by peace negotiations between the government and the armed groups and opposition political parties to silence the guns”, added Naga Tesfaye, a peace-building expert who served as a facilitator of the dialogue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some debates proved highly contentious.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There were multiple walkouts over the status of the self-governing capital, Addis Ababa, which the surrounding Oromia claims as its own.<\/p>\n
But some participants welcomed the dialogue as a rare instance of open debate in a country accustomed to authoritarian rule.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Bringing together groups with contending understandings of the Ethiopian state, for the first time ever, itself has been a successful exercise,” said Alamrew Yirdaw, a participant from the Amhara region.<\/p>\n
Hirut Gebreselassie, deputy chief of the dialogue commission, told AFP: “I hope the contending issues concerning the Ethiopian state are gradually resolved, mutual suspicion among people is reduced, and peace is incrementally maintained as a result of the dialogue process.”<\/p>\n
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