Ethiopia’s Prosperity Party has comfortably won another parliamentary majority in this month’s elections, with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed set to keep the top job as his party campaigned on the government’s economic record and improving food security. Abiy, who was appointed in 2018 following mass protests against the long-ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front coalition, created the Prosperity Party the following year.
The party won more than 90 percent of the available seats in the last parliamentary elections in 2021. The Ethiopian leader received widespread praise for freeing journalists, activists, and political prisoners, and revoking bans on many political parties after taking power.
He was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for ending hostilities with neighbouring Eritrea. However, his opponents and human rights activists accuse his government of reversing those gains in recent years by detaining journalists and shutting down civil society groups. Ethiopia has faced years of violent unrest in several ethnically organised regions, and a civil war in the northern Tigray region from 2020 to 2022 resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
The elections were not held in Tigray because of what the electoral board called unfavourable conditions there. Abiy’s government projects economic growth of over 10 percent in 2026, one of the fastest rates in Africa. The prime minister has promised to continue his reform agenda and address the country’s security challenges.
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