Abiy’s Mirror: Affective Polarization and the Vicious Cycle of Dictatorship in Ethiopia

Tibebu Taye

How does a Nobel Peace Prize laureate become a ruthless agitator in the span of just a few years? Abiy’s political path presents an interesting puzzle, with contradicting leadership and personas. He began in 2018 as The Reformist, a figure of almost messianic hope who liberalized the media and ended a long-standing war. By 2019, he had morphed into The Charming Dictator, building a cult of personality around his “Medemer” philosophy and a new, centralized ruling party. The outbreak of the Tigray War revealed a third, darker persona: The Ethnonationalist Autocrat, accused of exploiting ethnic divisions and overseeing a brutal conflict. Most recently, he has adopted the guise of The Ruthless Agitator, attempting to project strength through aggressive foreign policy and domestic crackdowns.

These are not the random shifts of an unpredictable leader. They are symptoms of a deeper political pathology. The existence of these shifts from reformer to charmer, autocrat to agitator—begs a fundamental question: Why is the Ethiopian political landscape structured in a way that not only allows but seems to demand such dramatic performances of power? This analysis moves beyond a simple character study of Abiy Ahmed to diagnose the system that produces him. It argues that Ethiopia is trapped in a vicious cycle of “socialized dictatorship,” where the nation’s deep affective polarizations and the leader’s quest for absolute power create a feedback loop, turning the political mass into a captive audience for a dictator’s drama.

The Crowds and their Leaders in Ethiopian Politics

When the politics of a nation are not grounded in democratic values like equality and liberty, they become volatile and prone to conflict. Looking at the murky path of Ethiopia’s current political environment, particularly the devastating war in Tigray and other simmering conflicts, one is reminded of Dr. Dagnachew Assefa’s observation that politics in Ethiopia is an ongoing battleground of competing forces. He noted that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government was engaged in a “war of maneuver”—a concept borrowed from Antonio Gramsci to describe a direct, physical struggle for control. This was evident in the early days when Abiy was seen as a reformist leader, a pathfinder liberating Ethiopians from the political dominance of the TPLF. From the TPLF’s perspective, however, Abiy’s reforms felt like a move toward centralization, stoking a sense of grievance that they were being pushed out of power. This clash of perceptions—Abiy’s surprise reforms and the TPLF’s indignation—became the spark that ignited a catastrophic power struggle.

Simultaneously, Dr. Dagnachew argued, Abiy’s regime was fighting a “war of position” in Oromia. This was an ideological and cultural struggle, with Oromo elites pushing an “anti-colonialist” narrative against what they perceived as the cultural dominance of Northwestern “Ethiopianist” ideology. In this complex arena, every political group—from the Fano to the OLF—battled to sway Abiy to their side. A pivotal shift occurred after the Pretoria agreement ended the Tigray war. Abiy’s clash with the TPLF converted into a war of position, while his growing tensions with the Amhara Fano groups escalated into a brutal war of maneuver, once again changing the political landscape.

Around the same period, Obbo Leencho Letta, in an interview with Bethlehem Tafesse (Bety Show), highlighted the difficulty of distinguishing Ethiopianism from Amhara nationalism. In his statements he was addressing the rising Amhara nationalism which is often considered to go hand in hand with the ideology ‘Ethiopianism’. He argued that defining this boundary was one of the most critical challenges facing Abiy’s government if it hoped to build a true federal system. Obbo Lencho, as he often does, offered an honest and nuanced layer of interpretation on the politics of the nation. But his advice landed not on fertile ground, but on a leader determined to exploit every opportunity to legitimize his own power.

What happened next was predictable. Shortly after Obbo Lencho’s comments, Abiy and his political apparatus began to fuel the very Amhara ethnonationalism they would later condemn. They used agitating phrases like “Amhara Shene,” labeling the movement as extremist, akin to the armed group in Oromia. This rhetoric escalated tensions in the Amhara region into a full-blown war, ostensibly under the pretext of disarming the Fano and restoring order. This move seemed to align with the goals of Oromo nationalist leaders like Jawar Mohammed, who later confirmed their objective was to reduce Amhara politics to a purely ethnic movement, believing it would ease their own struggle against perceived dominance. But this strategy was far from a simple success; it only deepened the nation’s fractures.

For many Amhara elites, Abiy was no longer a unifier but a leader driven by a narrow Oromo nationalist agenda. There was compelling evidence to support this view, particularly after a speech in which he spoke of strong anti-Oromo sentiment in Addis Ababa. This was reinforced during a visit to Nekemt, where he delivered an ethnically charged message in the local language, revealing a leader strategically navigating Oromo historical narratives. Moreover, the massive deconstructions of older cultural, religious and political orders in Addis Ababa and adjacent cities also attest to the timely political position of Abiy.  

More recently, Abiy seems to have shifted his position once again, moving away from an Oromo-centric stance and back towards the political center. This time, however, he presents himself as a leader who transcends both Amhara and Oromo nationalism. He believes he has rebuilt Ethiopia in his own image, remaking its political, social and military constellations. He no longer bothers with the reformist persona of his early days; he would rather be considered as a feared, technocrat, and all-knowing leader. To his critics, his actions simply prove the traits of a ruthless dictator. His supporters and media armies, meanwhile, try hard to moderate this image, portraying him as a naive but ambitious leader who only dreams of leaving a positive legacy in his leadership. 

The Vicious Cycle: Socialized Dictatorship

The relationship between a society and its leaders is a mirror reflection of one another. While many great thinkers have explored this dynamic, the current state of Ethiopia seems to best resonate with the philosophies of Gustave Le Bon, who studied the psychology of crowds, and Francis Fukuyama, who has written about political decay. In a country where core political values have been hollowed out, what remains is the dark reality of a crowd mindset and political manipulation.

Abiy’s evolution is a direct product of the deep-seated emotional polarization he both inherited and skillfully cultivated. He masterfully generated a wave of “Abiy-mania” and “cruel optimism” among Ethiopian nationalists with a rhetoric of unity, which simultaneously ignited intense anger and resentment among Oromo and Tigrayan factions. By stoking these two opposing poles of emotion—unwavering loyalty on one side and profound hostility on the other—Abiy positioned himself as the indispensable figure, a “charming dictator” whose authoritarian measures became justified as necessary to manage the very divisions he helped amplify. His leadership, therefore, isn’t just a cause of polarization; it thrives on it.

Ultimately, this strategy has left Ethiopian political masses as a society haunted by its own divisions. To maintain this fractured landscape, Abiy’s regime employs both soft and hard power. The “soft” approach involves promoting his “Medemer” philosophy and a prosperity gospel that encourages political complacency and numbs the populace to reality. The philosophy of Medemer carries religious undertones that should not be overlooked. The credo of Prosperity Gospel in Abiy’s empire is very simple: just follow the following two golden rules.

For the church – you need to contribute money to the church to demonstrate your faith and God will reward you materially one hundredfold.

For the Prosperity Party – you need to pledge loyalty and make your vote count in the upcoming election and God will reward you one hundredfold.

When the Medemer strategy fails, “hard” power is deployed through diverse controlling mechanisms, including panopticon of surveillance, manipulation, and state violence, ensuring that “the walls have ears.” The result is a nation swamped by ‘post-truth politics, where rational discourse is replaced by emotional reaction, and deep-seated distrust between groups turns citizens into instruments of their own control. Ethiopians are haunted not by an external enemies, but by the internal specter of its own weaponized emotions. 

The Vicious Circle: Personalized Repression

Upon assuming power, Abiy embarked on dismantling the old political order. But he quickly realized that military maneuvers alone would not be enough to consolidate his power. He needed to setup a new political order to shape and govern the behavior of the people. What he may not have understood was that the very order he tried to create would be unstable and constantly evolving. Instead of achieving social cohesion, his institutional reforms accelerated the country’s political decay.

Abiy has systematically personalized Ethiopian politics by transforming its institutions from instruments of the state into extensions of his own authority. Recognizing that a divided populace seeks a warrior-king, not a statesman, he positioned himself as the sole arbiter in a zero-sum struggle between “us” and “them.” He rendered parliament and the executive subservient through the doctrine of “Medemer,” where loyalty to his vision replaced constitutional duty, fostering a culture of “anticipatory obedience.” Any institution deemed a potential threat—be it the independent press, the judiciary, or rival political parties—would be systematically dismantled, an action justified to his supporters as a necessary defense against internal enemies, often under the façade of law enforcement operation or anti-terrorist measures. He melted the EPRDF forming his “Prosperity Party,” a tool designed around his personal aspirations and ensuring the party structure served his ambition, not an ideology. This process erased the fine line between the leader and the state, making criticism of his policies an act of treason.

This personalization of power was cemented by refashioning state functions into tools of personal control. The national security apparatus, including INSA, was repurposed from protecting the nation to creating a panopticon of surveillance and violence that enforced loyalty to him personally. Economic institutions became instruments of patronage, creating a system of “serfhood” where access to resources was contingent on political subservience. Even reality itself was personalized; he became the ultimate source of truth for his followers, creating a propaganda feedback loop that made him immune to scandal. By transforming political discourse into a loyalty test and state institutions into weapons, Abiy has achieved the ultimate goal of a modern dictator: not just to rule the country, but to make the very fabric of its political and institutional life a reflection of his own absolute power.

In conclusion, what is unfolding in Ethiopia is a cycle of a spectral society and an agitating dictatorship, each reinforcing one another leading to social division and repression. External ghosts do not haunt Ethiopians, but the internal spectre of their own weaponised emotions. Creating self-policing and psychic numbing. Now we live in a system where fear and division do the work of the state. In this way, the dictator and the spectral masses are intertwined in a tragic embrace, each socialising the other’s worst impulses, driving the nation toward a political decay.

Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com      

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