If Abiy wins and takes the nation building route he would do well to listen more and lecture less. This listening and dialoguing process needs to start with his own constituency – Oromia – and to extend to war-torn Tigray. But he may in fact choose the authoritarian path. There will be no shortage of pretexts if this is deemed politically profitable. Abiy can project himself as the leader of law and order. There is already widespread lawlessness and the loss of a sense of security and safety among the masses. Ethiopia is at a stage where democracy can be seen as a luxury.
AuthorMohammed Girma
Mohammed Girma (MA and PhD in political philosophy, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) is a Visiting Lecturer, University of Roehampton, and currently works as a research associate at the University of Pretoria. Previously he has worked as visiting scholar at Yale University and assistant professor at ETF, Leuven, Belgium. Girma is the author of 'Understanding Religion and Social Change in Ethiopia' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), co-editor of Christian Citizenship in the Middle East (JKP, 2017) and the editor of The Healing of Memories: African Christian Response to Politically Induced Trauma (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018). Girma also writes comments on African, especially Ethiopian, social and political matters.