(Getahun Assefa)
As Ethiopia heads into its general election on June 1, 2026, the Institute of Foreign Affairs (IFA) has issued yet another defensive broadside. In its May 30 article, “The Election Before the Election: How Adversarial Narratives Seek to Pre-Empt Ethiopia’s Vote”, the government-affiliated think tank accuses international media outlets, opposition voices, and independent analysts of waging “grey-zone warfare” through disinformation and premature delegitimization.
This is not the measured analysis of a serious strategic institute as it claims to be. It is the predictable tantrum of a state-sponsored entity whose primary role is to shield an illegitimate process from scrutiny. Far from engaging with substantive criticisms, the IFA resorts to conspiracy-laden rhetoric, deflecting attention from the election’s core flaws: massive disenfranchisement, opposition suppression, and a predetermined outcome designed to rubber-stamp Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s continued centralization of power. What’s more dictatorship than this!
A Ritual Without Substance
The Ethiopian government boasts impressive figures — over 50 million registered voters and thousands of candidates. On paper, this suggests a vibrant democratic exercise. In practice, it is a carefully managed spectacle. Entire regions remain excluded from meaningful participation. Tigray, still reeling from the devastating 2020-2022 war, has been effectively shut out for the second consecutive national election. Millions of citizens in parts of Amhara and Oromia face suspended voting due to ongoing insurgencies involving groups like Fano and the Oromo Liberation Army. These are not minor logistical hiccups but structural exclusions that render any claim of national legitimacy hollow and sham.
The opposition, already fragmented, intimidated, brutalized, and resource-poor, operates under countless severe constraints. Arrests of critics, media restrictions, bureaucratic harassment, and a winner-takes-all electoral system heavily favor the incumbent Prosperity Party and its arch-dictator-Abiy Ahmed Ali. Many so-called opposition parties participate only to avoid deregistration, not out of any realistic hope of influencing governance. This is the classic playbook of authoritarian elections: high turnout theatre, masking the absence of genuine choice and open contestation.
The IFA: A Moronic Shield for Illegitimacy
The IFA’s sudden prominence in rebutting Western reports like those from The Economist reveals its true nature. Established under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and funded almost entirely by the Ethiopian government, this institute has produced little of independent strategic value over the years. Its core competence lies in narrative defence — reframing domestic failures as foreign conspiracies and legitimate criticism as “adversarial networks.”
By labelling scrutiny as pre-emptive information warfare, the IFA avoids addressing uncomfortable realities: the ruling party’s monopoly on state resources, the shrinking space for dissent, and the gap between Abiy Ahmed’s early reformist image and his current trajectory of warlordism, dictatorship and greater authoritarian control. This pattern is depressingly familiar across Africa. Dictatorships routinely create or sponsor pseudo-institutions — think tanks, electoral commissions, and “human rights” bodies — whose sole purpose is diversionary and to launder the regime’s image and attack its critics.
Compromised Observers and the Theatre of Legitimacy
A particularly revealing element is the government’s reliance on carefully selected “international observers.” The IFA and official channels routinely cite missions from IGAD and the African Union as evidence of credibility or legitimacy. Yet a closer look exposes the farce. IGAD’s Executive Secretary, Workneh Gebeyehu, is a longtime insider of Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party. A former Minister of Foreign Affairs under the current administration, his deep political alignment with the Ethiopian regime makes any claim of impartial regional oversight laughable. He is not an independent arbiter but an architect and member of the very political structure being evaluated. Similarly, former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, leading aspects of the African Union observation effort, brings his own baggage of dynastic politics and documented corruption scandals during his tenure in Kenya.
Deploying such carefully selected figures is a deliberate strategy: invite friendly elites from the regional club who understand the mutual benefits of elite protection, then trumpet their presence as validation. This is not election observation — it is peer review among authoritarians. This is one among the many factors that exposes Africa’s sham election with no objective scrutiny whatsoever, severely undermining credibility and legitimacy. Genuine democratic oversight requires independent bodies free from political and financial ties to the host government. What Ethiopia has instead is a curated audience for a predetermined performance.
The Real Information Warfare
The IFA’s attempt to portray criticism as foreign-orchestrated “grey-zone” operations is particularly insidious. It dismisses the voices of conflict-affected communities in Tigray, Amhara, and Oromia; the concerns of the Ethiopian diaspora; and the reporting of journalists who have documented intimidation and exclusion. These are not abstract geopolitical plots. They reflect lived realities on the ground.
Ethiopia faces serious challenges — ethnic tensions, economic hardship, post-war reconstruction, marginalization of vast areas where citizens reside, and regional security threats. These deserve serious, transparent governance. Ritualistic elections that exclude millions, suppress competition, and rely on compromised institutions only deepen grievances, risk future instability and eventual collapse of the current regime like the Derge and recently with EPRDF regimes. The real threat to Ethiopia’s stability is not The Economist or other Western outlets, many of which once welcomed Abiy’s 2018 opening. The threat lies in the ruling elite’s refusal to build inclusive, independent, capable, accountable and responsible institutions.
Time for Honest Reckoning
Elections should be instruments of legitimacy, not tools of entrenchment or ethnic entitlement. When institutions like the IFA exist primarily to defend the indefensible — predetermined outcomes, selective disenfranchisement, and sham observation missions — they expose the rot at the heart of the system rather than protecting it. True progress in Ethiopia will not come from louder tantrums against critics or more sophisticated narrative management. It requires genuine political competition, inclusive participation across all regions, respect for basic freedoms, and independent institutions that serve the public interest rather than the ruling party. Until then, Ethiopia’s elections will remain what they are: expensive ceremonies that change little while pretending to change everything. The Ethiopian people deserve far better than this theatre of democracy and its eager stage managers at the IFA.
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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My prayers are heard, The election was held peacefully.