Asymmetric electoral authoritarianism? The case of the 2021 elections in Ethiopia

On 21 June and 30 September 2021, Ethiopia voted in national elections that had been twice postponed and that lacked meaningful competition in most constituencies. These were the first elections since a leadership transition brought Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to power. In addition to all of the seats in war-torn Tigray, no voting took place in 18 seats in the Amhara and eight seats in the Oromo regional states. In the end, as seen in Table 1, the ruling Prosperity Party (PP) won 455 of the 471 seats (97%) where voting took place, with 76 seats unfilled. The largest opposition party won just five seats in a single region (data from the National Election Board of Ethiopia [NEBE] website, www.nebe.org.et/en/electionresult). This outcome came as no surprise, as the general lack of competition and the overall outcome were clear before the voting began. Past patterns of electoral authoritarianism seemed entrenched and there seemed to be little reason for further analysis.

There were, nevertheless, three broad patterns of political competition evident in these elections that indicate important local variation with implications for Ethiopia’s future and underlying political economy. This debate piece provides context to understand this result. It details how elections may be significant even if not competitive, and asks the question whether these elections mark the beginning of a period of political openness and dialogue, a period of authoritarian consolidation of power, escalating violence and fragmentation, or a mixed picture with contradictory indications.

The first pattern reflects that there is genuine popular support for the PP in various communities because of Abiy’s personal popularity, because the PP is perceived as a bulwark against the return of the widely unpopular Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) that led the former Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) ruling coalition, and because of the PP’s nationalist positions, notably on the construction of the megaproject Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. The PP also had support where it aligned with the local identities, as with Amhara nationalism and claims to western Tigray, and aspirations for new regional states, as in Sidama and the south-west.

The second archetype is seen in the Amhara regional state. In that region, opposition parties had more room to mobilise and, while the opposition only won five out of 119 seats, they did win at least 30% of the vote in 71 constituencies, and in 38 constituencies, they won 40% or more of the vote. This is significantly different from elections in 2010 and 2015, when the ruling EPRDF closed political space and won all of the seats with minimal competition. Addis Ababa, the capital, also follows this pattern. While the outcome with regard to representation in the parliament is little changed, the difference in terms of long-term opposition party development is potentially substantially different.

The third pattern is seen in the populous Oromo and Somali regional states, which exemplify the older model of electoral authoritarianism experienced in Ethiopia since 1991. An armed insurgency by the Oromo Liberation Army prevented voting from taking place in some constituencies in western Oromia. The arrest and harassment of opposition party leaders led to opposition boycotts and the Oromo PP winning all seats, including 105 seats without any competition, and the Somali PP winning all 23 seats without any competition. In Oromia and Somali region, the PP behaved much like its predecessor the EPRDF in limiting political competition. Overall, therefore, Ethiopia is now an asymmetric electoral authoritarian state, with elements of both local competition and entrenched authoritarianism varying from region to region.

These three patterns of electoral authoritarianism and political violence vary by region and suggest that local politics is increasingly determining outcomes. This political arrangement, of course, is not consolidated, and escalating political violence may well transform politics in the regions once more. But processes of political change often comprise some combination of continuity and change, and the patterns evident in 2021 are important starting points for future developments. In addition, while locally grounded, these variations are also in tension with one another as popular local issues in one area are regarded with apprehension in others. Amhara nationalism, for example, mobilises key constituencies but also alarms many Oromo and others from southern Ethiopia. The PP has tried to manage contradictions around local and national identities through its message of medemer – diversity within unity. It remains unclear, however, whether straddling these contradictions will be sustainable if Ethiopia is further polarised.

The PP is a diverse party, with clear messages of unity and harmony from the top. But there are also local messages of Amhara nationalism, narratives that framed the TPLF as evil and responsible for Ethiopia’s problems. There are also complex competitions within PP branches in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR) often driven by very local agendas and interests in creating new regional states, and heavy-handed electoral authoritarianism that used the power of the state and coercion to dominate Oromia and Somali regional states in boycotted elections. This diversity mattered little for which party would win the elections and dominate Ethiopian politics. The PP used its electoral supremacy and formed a new government on 4 October 2021. Diverse outcomes across regions, as evidenced by varied voting patterns, however, reveal important institutional dynamics and distribution of power, and have implications for longer-term political developments.

The PP differs from the long-incumbent EPRDF in significant ways. It is no longer a coalition of ethnically defined parties, and its official medemer ideology is not the same as the EPRDF’s ideology of revolutionary democracy. In contrast to the EPRDF, the PP has softened the rhetoric of the developmental state and espoused explicitly neoliberal economic policies. These include looser currency controls, the privatisation of state enterprises, more foreign involvement in the domestic economy, and a greater role for the private sector in the economy overall. The ‘prosperity’ the PP envisages is one of capitalist accumulation, but the party also remains heavily involved in directing the economy. It remains unclear, however, whether the modicum of openness in Amhara, the support of PP as a source of unity, the heavy-handed electoral authoritarianism in Oromo and Somali regions, or the violence rather than electoral competition in Tigray and western Oromia will become dominant in the coming years, or whether these divergent patterns can continue to co-exist in contradiction and endure in an asymmetric balance, alongside these apparent economic contradictions.

Ethiopia has experienced horrific and widescale political violence since civil war erupted in Tigray in November 2020. This brutality shaped not only local politics in Tigray and in important areas of surrounding states but also the overall future of Ethiopia. Because of this armed conflict, voting did not take place in Tigray and in 18 constituencies in Amhara regional state. Furthermore, the civil war is linked to elections in several specific ways. Elections played a role in precipitating the war in Tigray. In September 2020, the TPLF organised elections for Tigray’s regional assembly, without the sanction of the federal government or the NEBE. The TPLF asserted that the federal constitution did not allow for a further delay regardless of the challenges of managing the Covid-19 crisis. The federal government, the PP and NEBE responded that a unilateral vote would be illegal. The TPLF proceeded regardless. In the event, the TPLF won 98% of the votes cast and 100% of the open seats. Following the vote, the federal government suspended fiscal transfers to Tigray, and acrimony mounted. However, for a short time before hostilities began, it was the TPLF that was able to assert that it, rather than the PP, had electoral legitimacy, despite the clearly uncompetitive contest it had orchestrated. Tigray’s electoral performance clearly had links to subsequent violence, even if the election campaign and voting were peaceful.

It is notable that Abiy and his supporters consistently emphasise the government’s democratic legitimacy derived from ‘free and fair elections’ in contrast to patterns of dictatorship they attribute to the TPLF-dominated era. ‘The Government of Ethiopia was chosen through free and fair elections. There is no equivalence between a democratically elected government and a group of terrorists and nonstate actors that continue to cause violence and destruction across our country’ (Tweet from Government Communications Service, 5 November 2021).

The narrative of a legitimate electoral mandate is central to the government’s narrative about the terrible and costly war. We do not diminish the fundamental importance of this conflict, but we are here focusing on distinct dynamics evidenced in the 2021 elections. Varying patterns of campaign, political party development and voting seem to reveal underlying political dynamics that are part of Ethiopia’s contemporary political story.

Asymmetric electoral authoritarianism

Ethiopia in 2021 illustrates that electoral authoritarianism can vary across regions, particularly in a federal state. Donno (2013) and others, for example, have proposed distinguishing between electoral authoritarian regimes that are ‘hegemonic’ and those that are ‘competitive’ based on whether electoral uncertainty exists. The results in the Amhara region and to an extent in the SNNPR suggest that those areas are closer to competitive authoritarian systems, while Oromia and other regions are more clearly hegemonic since they lacked even a modicum of electoral competition. There can be democratic enclaves in authoritarian regimes (Gilley 2010) and authoritarian enclaves in democratic regimes (Giraudy 2015). These variations may provide the basis for political change at the national level but are also in contradiction and, in the context of civil war, may not endure.

We argue that Ethiopia’s case may go beyond a model of enclaves and the hegemonic-competitive binary; it is the variability of authoritarianism that is distinctive here. Still, we do not exaggerate the degree to which contestation in the Amhara and SNNP regions represent early signs of a democratic order in the making. The 2005 elections saw considerably higher levels of competition (the combined opposition won 31% of the seats in that poll), but the subsequent crackdown virtually eliminated political space. Yet as van de Walle and others have suggested, political parties are foundational to democratic systems and most opposition parties are very weak (Rakner and van de Walle 2009; van de Walle 2015). This is perhaps particularly true in Africa, where lack of resources outside of the state make it difficult to raise funds and build institutional capacity. Van de Walle’s analysis indicates that leading opposition parties in Africa have averaged only 25% of the vote since 1989. In Ethiopia’s Amhara region, the opposition won nearly 30% of the vote and in Addis Ababa they won just over 40%, suggesting that perhaps the opposition parties in those regions closely resemble the average across Africa. That is in contrast to Oromia and Somali regions, where opposition parties were effectively shut out of the process.

The context: Ethiopia in transition?

After a period of sustained demonstrations, two states of emergency and large-scale arrests of protestors, the EPRDF – the dominant ruling party since winning a protracted civil war in 1991 – shifted its leadership and promoted Abiy Ahmed as the head of the party and prime minister in 2018. Abiy had been a stalwart in the Oromo wing of the ruling coalition but also articulated a message of reform. Political prisoners were released, exiled politicians invited home and elections planned. Abiy flew to Asmara and promised to normalise relations with Eritrea, an act that led to him receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 (Lyons 2021).

The process of promising liberalisation and opening of political space, however, coincided with a weakening of state institutions of control and stability. The leadership transition provided new opportunities to make polarised nationalist claims that heightened grievance narratives and encouraged ethnic outbidding. Without a strong central government to manage relations between regional states and zones, security dilemmas often led to escalation of local rivalries into violence (Semir Yusuf 2019). In some places security forces either broke down or became predatory, engaging in land grabs and attacks on minority communities. Non-state armed groups, sometimes in alliance with powerful political actors, took advantage of the withdrawal of formal security to pursue parochial interests and economic agendas. As a result, violence escalated in many parts of the country, resulting in nearly three million internally displaced persons in 2019, flare-ups in virtually every region, a race by regional security forces to increase the lethality of their equipment, and a sustained insurgency in parts of Oromia.

In November 2019, the EPRDF coalition ceased to exist and a new successor party – the PP – was established. The separate Oromo, Amhara and Southern parties within the coalition disbanded and their respective individual members joined the new political party. The TPLF – historically the most powerful member of the EPRDF coalition – refused to support the merger, labelled it ‘illegal and reactionary’, and argued that the move placed in doubt the federalism that had been at the core of the Ethiopian state since 1991.

As a party with individual members rather than as a coalition, the PP altered the balance of power among communities and between the party in the centre and the party in the regions. While there was considerable variation in different regions, PP’s ‘regional chapters’ were in some cases the same Oromo, Amhara and Southern party structures that made up the prior coalition. Some observers asked whether the powerful party-state of the past, with its considerable access to patronage and coercive power, was merely rebranded rather than dismantled (Gardner 2020; Rebecca Zerihun 2020). PP officials in the Amhara region offered interviewers coffee in Amhara National Democratic Movement mugs, suggesting that rebranding takes time and resources. Continuity of dominant party politics rather than a new democratic dispensation characterised the PP in power in the period prior to the 2021 elections.

Ideologically, PP shifted emphasis to ethnic harmony and national unity in contrast to the EPRDF’s depiction of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups as victims of historical processes of forced assimilation. Alongside political liberalisation, the PP also shifted towards a more conventionally capitalist outlook, in which a rising economy would benefit all Ethiopians. The rhetoric of ‘Prosperity’ signified a more individualist, free-market approach to the economy, linked to a more social abstraction of national harmony. The framing at the centre, however, did not always translate effectively or in the same manner to the diverse regions (Goitom Gebreluel 2019). In the Amhara region, for example, anti-TPLF rhetoric and claims to territory in western Tigray were dominant in 2020 and 2021, while in parts of Oromia the Oromo PP emphasised the distinctive historical narrative of Oromo marginalisation, and the need to redress the economic imbalance between Addis Ababa and neighbouring poorer areas of Oromia. In the Sidama region, many residents applauded the PP’s support for the referendum that gave the area the status of a regional state rather than a narrative of national unity (Tronvoll 2021), and saw the increased federal fiscal transfers the new state would obtain as an important economic achievement. This was also true in the Kaffa and Bench Maji zones, where proponents of a new South Western Regional State linked their support for the PP to the party’s promise to support a statehood referendum. Despite the themes of unity and a party platform emanating from the centre and articulated by top party leaders, distinct ethnic themes emerged as politicians in ethnically defined regions competed for votes. As one PP official in Oromia said, ‘Abiy is the right person [because he] grew up with the Gadaa system [a traditional form of Oromo self-government: see Asmarom Legesse 1973]. PP is beginning to apply that [Gadaa] in public.’

In addition, the PP is organised differently in important ways from the EPRDF. As a unified party, Ethiopians who lived outside of the Tigray, Amhara, Oromo and SNNPR states could now join the PP. The largest new contingent were Somalis, who represent 7% of Ethiopia’s total population. Individuals regardless of ethnicity join the PP directly. However, given the retention of the multi-national federalist model of ethnically defined regional states, the PP retained de facto ethnic components. There was an Oromo PP operating in Oromia, an Amhara PP competing in the Amhara state, PP branches in the various zones of SNNPR and Sidama, and a Tigrayan PP (in competition with the TPLF) as well as PP branches in Somali, Afar, Benishangul Gumuz, Harar and Gambella regional states that had not been part of the EPRDF ruling coalition.

The PP also differed in how regional affiliates were linked to the centre of the party. The EPRDF’s regional parties had a degree of autonomy with regard to their internal party leadership which allowed pro-reform leaders such as Lemma Megersa and Gedu Andargachew to build their bases of support (Bekele Erko 2020). The regional branch party committees in the PP, in contrast, have less autonomy. In 2021, the PP put forward parliamentary candidates who often had not been party leaders of the past but were professionals and technocrats. This may have helped win votes but has resulted in an inexperienced parliament and members of parliament (MPs) without established links to regional party structures.

Over time, top leaders of the PP believed that this new way of structuring the party would promote multi-national unity by reducing inter-ethnic competition. In the context of the transition, however, it ignited a reaction from many who saw it as an effort to return to a kind of unified state that recalled the days of imperial domination. Some Oromo opposition leaders, for example, labelled the new PP leaders as ‘neo-neftenya’ to suggest that they represented the forces of imperial occupation of the past (Azeb Madebo 2020). The articulation of Ethiopian unity sometimes blurred the lines with Amhara nationalism, at least in the perception of many from historically marginalised communities. The TPLF insisted that the PP was contrary to the constitution and an attack on the accomplishments of the TPLF since 1991. When the TPLF organised its own regional elections in September 2020, Addis Ababa declared them ‘null and void’.

In many ways the PP represented considerable continuity with the authoritarian characteristics of the EPRDF, and some labelled the PP as ‘EPRDF 2.0’ (Zekarias Ezra 2019). As was the pattern at the height of EPRDF dominance, dissent became criminalised, opposition figures and journalists faced arrest, and the Internet was regularly shut down to manage protests, despite an initial improvement in human rights in the first months of the Abiy government. Human rights monitors alleged that arrests following the killing of Oromo popular singer and activist Hachalu Hundessa raised concerns that Ethiopian authorities had ‘not moved on from past practices of arresting first, and investigating later’ (Human Rights Watch 2020). Many arrested political figures lacked access to lawyers and were sometimes held even after courts ordered their release on bail. As in the past, the PP regime responded with great umbrage to criticism from the international humanitarian organisations, media and scholars and claimed that sovereignty protected them from scrutiny, in ways similar to the EPRDF.

Overall, therefore, the transition from the EPRDF, that governed Ethiopia from 1991 to 2019, to the PP represented a mixture of continuity and change. The overall authoritarian nature of the ruling party and its relationship to elections remained much the same, even as the scale and form of authoritarianism applied varied in practice. Formally, the PP was organised as a more centralised institution with less autonomy for its regional branches. While the PP emphasised themes of unity and harmony, the pre-existing ethnically defined regions and the ‘ethnic branches’ of the PP reinforced political dynamics based on increasingly polarised identity politics. Finally, fieldwork revealed there were significant differences in how the PP operated in different regions. The political transition weakened the centre and, as demonstrated by the 2021 elections, provided the space for considerable variation in regional political competition.

The 2021 Ethiopian elections

The following is based on fieldwork conducted in Amhara, Oromia and the SNNP regions in May and June 2021, as well as on an analysis of the results published by the NEBE in August and October 2021. Other regional states had other patterns of campaigning and voting, but these three are the largest. With a collective 77% of the seats in Ethiopia’s parliament, these regions have more constituencies than any other, with 138, 178 and 104 seats, respectively. These three large regions have more than enough MPs to make a majority and approve the formation of a government.

Most assessments of the elections can be classified into two categories: either that the 2021 elections were autocratic and thus served no meaningful attempt at democratisation (e.g. Cheeseman and Yohannes Woldemariam 2021; Mehari Taddele Maru 2021; Soliman 2021), or that the elections constitute an historic and decisive democratic shift under a professional and independent electoral administration, high turnout and significant campaigning (e.g. Abbink 2021; Freeman 2021). Our research suggests a third possibility: that despite an overall election outcome that indicates the polls were uncompetitive, the election varied significantly from region to region in both its quality and its competitiveness. The election was not uniform and demonstrated characteristics that partially departed from historical trends while reinforcing some established patterns of political behaviour.

Considered in isolation, the aggregate results mask the potential for emergent local competition and nascent political pluralism, as well as internal competition and ideological and organisational divergence within the ruling PP, including how the party approached the politicisation of public resources (Greene 2010). These trends, however, manifested inconsistently and with variation across the three regions. Further, even where change seems apparent, such developments are subject to reversal. Notably, even in areas where PP is dominant, we suggest that support for PP is best thought of as a spectrum from tepid to enthusiastic, and that even people who admire and proclaim support for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed may be otherwise distrustful of the PP, and vice versa. At the same time, particularly within, but not limited to, Oromia, competition was absent and there was significant continuity with earlier practices of electoral authoritarianism in 2008, 2010 and 2015, where the ruling party remained ultra-dominant (Arriola and Lyons 2016).

Emergent local competition amid enduring electoral authoritarianism

The election campaign in parts of Amhara and the SNNP regions, as well as Addis Ababa, was marked by a degree of uncertainty about the outcome. That was the case even if there was little doubt about the identity of the party with the greatest resources and advantages: the incumbent PP. For example, one opposition party, Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice (more commonly known by its Amharic acronym, Ezema), argued that in the Amhara region that it had a ‘good chance’ due to the number of candidates that were standing for the party, demonstrating a degree of party organisation that was hitherto untested (Interview, Bahir Dar, 10 May 2021). Representatives for Ezema in Addis Ababa argued that measuring the party’s success outside the capital could not be done primarily in terms of its eventual seat count, given the fact that this was the first election the party had ever contested (Interview, Addis Ababa, 8 June). At an event for Ezema at the close of the campaign in Bonga, SNNPR, party leader Berhanu Nega acknowledged that ‘if we are not the winner, we don’t mind … next time we will be stronger in the elections’ (Campaign rally, Bonga, 15 June 2021).

Ezema positioned itself as a national alternative to the PP, but it won only four seats, all in the SNNPR. Why did Ezema not do better? Ezema made a series of allegations against the government for closing its offices and harassing its candidates and raised questions about the voter registration process. In addition, its strategy to campaign nationally may have diluted its ability to win other seats potentially in reach. For example, in the SNNPR, Ezema contested 79 of the 82 constituencies that held elections in June 2021; excluding the four seats that the party won, its candidates received an average of just 10.5% of the vote in the 75 other constituencies it contested for which results are available. But in SNNPR constituencies like Oyda Liyu and Uba Debre Tsehay, the party came close to winning, receiving more than 40% of the vote in both places. Meanwhile, the party mounted a high-profile and much more expensive campaign in Addis Ababa that did not bear dividends, required as much focus on other opposition parties as on PP, and consequently used the party’s limited resources for little return. A more focused campaign on select seats elsewhere might have delivered more votes and more victories in such areas. In the Amhara region, where Ezema also had strong hopes, voters considering supporting the opposition preferred the National Movement of Amhara (NAMA) to Ezema; Ezema finished third or lower in 105 of the 116 constituencies it contested, averaging just 6% of the vote in those constituencies. This poor electoral performance did not preclude the party’s inclusion in the government Abiy named in October, with party leader Berhanu Nega becoming minister of education.

In the Amhara region’s largest cities, Bahir Dar and Gondar, representatives for the NAMA party noted that they were enthusiastically received by the population and particularly active in campaigning in urban areas, while still facing limitations in their campaign activities in more rural locations. As one NAMA representative noted,

Events such as the abductions and targeting of ethnic Amhara in other parts of the country, the war in Tigray and disputes over the control of Welkait and Humera districts also influenced the prospects of parties contesting in Amhara. The impact of these events particularly affected NAMA. For NAMA, many of its prospective supporters in Amhara region were apparently demotivated from participating in the electoral process, resigned to the fact that their participation would not matter (Interviews, Bahir Dar and Gondar, 7–16 May 2021). Anecdotally, voter registration in Amhara was often received unenthusiastically; some voter registration staff recounted that only a few people came to register per day, and that some registrants had been forced to register against their will, or risk incurring the wrath of local kebele officials, which again invokes the historic precedent of the coercive impact of local government (Interviews, Bahir Dar and Gondar, 7–16 May 2021; Aalen and Tronvoll 2008). Voter registration data suggest that, in comparison with other regions, the number of registrants in Amhara was particularly low. Low registration figures in part explain why turnout percentages were so high.

Although only five seats were won by NAMA in Amhara region – including Bahir Dar, the regional capital – many constituencies saw significant numbers of votes cast for opposition parties. Overall, NAMA received more than 617,000 votes, roughly a fifth of the 3.17 million votes received by the PP. In 71 of the 117 Amhara region constituencies for which results are available, the winning party took less than 70% of the vote, and in 17 constituencies, the winning candidate received less than a majority of the vote. Meanwhile, second-place candidates took an average 16% of the vote across the region, while in 32 constituencies the second-place candidate took at least 20% of the vote. In an international comparative context such figures may seem unimpressive; Amhara’s results are considerably different from those in neighbouring Oromia, where, as shown in Table 2, 105 constituencies had only a single (PP) candidate, and the average candidate won with 98% of the vote. Even in the 65 contested Oromia constituencies for which results were reported in August, the average second-place candidate took 2.8% of the vote. In 20 of those 66 seats, the second-place candidate took 1% of the vote or less. The SNNPR was also more competitive, where Ezema won its only seats. The average candidate won with 79% of the vote; the average share of the vote for second-place candidates was just under 15%.

The vote in the capital, Addis Ababa, was expected to be competitive and potentially elect some opposition candidates. The opposition had swept all of the seats in Addis Ababa in the 2005 elections. In other African cases, opposition parties have done relatively well in urban constituencies (Resnick 2012). However, the PP took all but one of the 23 seats; the 23rd seat was won by an independent candidate closely aligned with Abiy in a constituency that PP did not contest. Yet this apparent landslide was not as resounding a success for PP as it first appears: PP benefited from both a divided opposition and the inequities of a first-past-the-post electoral system. PP received 760,168 votes in the 22 constituencies it won; the opposition parties Balderas and Ezema, which alternated coming second or third in all of the Addis Ababa constituencies, between them received 457,125 votes across the city (32% of the total), but came away empty handed.

This assessment demonstrates that while the PP won all but a handful of seats, patterns of political competition were different in important ways in Amhara, Addis Ababa and the SNNPR in comparison to Oromia. The domination of the PP in Oromia is nearly complete. Given the arrests of top opposition leaders and the boycott of major Oromo political parties, competition in Oromia resembled past patterns of EPRDF elections. In the Amhara region and Addis Ababa, in contrast, Ezema and NAMA had active campaigns, and while NAMA only won five seats, each of these parties won substantial numbers of votes in a range of constituencies. Despite everything, opposition parties organised extensive campaigns and over a million voted against the incumbent party in the Amhara region. Only by disaggregating the election results can we see this much more complex picture, which helps us move beyond simple assessments of whether the election advanced democracy or reinforced authoritarianism.

Although important reforms were made to the NEBE, including the appointment of former opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa as board chair, weaknesses in election administration were apparent. After a year-long postponement due to Covid-19, the election was further delayed due to insufficient logistical preparations and, just days before the June vote, a number of elections were further delayed. At regional and constituency levels, there were also significant deficiencies. In parts of Oromia, for example, NEBE staff made no pretence at being independent from the PP, prominently displaying PP campaign material inside polling stations. In Amhara, NEBE voter registration staff noted much of the population was uninterested in registering; some staff reported that some people had come forward to register only after being coerced to do so by local officials (Interviews, in and around Bahir Dar, 11–12 May 2021). NEBE’s results also showed a very high rate of invalid ballots in some regions (see Table 3).¹ In Amhara, the average rate of invalid ballots in more competitive constituencies, where the winner of the election received less than a majority of the vote, was nearly 18%, rising to as high as 28%, but NEBE did not provide an explanation for why so many ballots were invalidated. In 13 of 17 cases where the winner of the election received less than a majority of the vote, the winner’s margin of victory was less than the number of invalid ballots. In Dera, Dessie Ketema, Gubalafto and Erob Gebeya in Amhara, and Kucha and Arbaminch in SNNPR, between 13 and 29% of polling stations were entirely invalidated due to irregularities. Furthermore, the extraordinary high turnout and low number of invalid ballots in constituencies that lacked competition in Oromia has not been adequately explained.

Tactics of the PP

The PP has distinct regional identities. One expression of these distinct identities was the use of diverse organisational and messaging tactics in different regions. For example, in Jimma, Oromia, party representatives stressed that they campaigned on the fact that Abiy Ahmed, who originates from the area, was himself a product of the traditional Gadaa system of governance indigenous to Oromia, a point not formally part of the PP’s national manifesto, and a claim absent from Abiy Ahmed’s own campaign visit to Jimma on 16 June. For at least some Oromia PP representatives, with no uncertainty about the election’s outcome, the campaign was merely an adjunct to its continued governing. As one official explained,

NEBE delayed the election day from 5 June to 21 June, prompting some impatience from PP at the national level, which appeared keen to have the election held as quickly as possible. In parts of Oromia, however, PP’s representatives were much less concerned about the delay, and even asserted that the extension helped the party. As one official explained, ‘Does it make sense if you give me more time? Yes, it does. [The] extension allows us to do more work [and] campaign more in Agaro, Guma, Manas’ (Interview, Jimma, May 2021).

For PP’s local officials in Amhara, the federal government’s handling of the Tigray conflict and grievances in Amhara were a cause for anxiety, and, at least in Amhara’s urban areas, a reason to keep a relatively low profile until late in the campaign. In contrast to PP’s offices elsewhere in the country (and to the offices of other parties in Amhara region), PP’s offices in Amhara had a significant police guard, and much of the election paraphernalia of posters and banners erected in Amhara’s towns had been quickly destroyed. Although PP was confident of its eventual victory across the region, party representatives acknowledged that the killings of Amhara elsewhere in the country harmed its popularity in the Amhara region. As one figure explained, ‘it affects popularity here, it affects the election process, we have a challenge in Amhara region … ’ (Interview, Bahir Dar, May 2021). They went on to blame NAMA for instigating and organising violence, claims NAMA entirely rejected.

Meanwhile, in a significant part of the SNNPR, the PP’s tactics were tied to the south-west referendum on statehood, which sought to elevate in the constitutional order the Kaffa, Sheka, Bench Sheko, Dawuro and West Omo zones, as well as the Konta district, as a new region separate from the SNNPR. By cloaking itself in the mantle of south-west regional nationalism, the PP persuasively argued that it should also be the people’s choice in parliament, even if, as was the case in Bonga town, many voters felt that the PP candidate – a long-time EPRDF figure – did not represent change. Even if all other contesting parties in the south-west also endorsed statehood, it was the PP that apparently reaped the credit for proceeding with the referendum, despite the fact that NEBE postponed the referendum just days before the scheduled vote. Even with the referendum’s delay to September, however, many voters indicated that they would still support the PP on 21 June as they feared that any weakening of support for the party would risk compromising the referendum from being held at all.

Conclusion

The 2021 elections in Ethiopia changed little with regard to the ruling PP’s hold on power. In the end, the elections were not competitive and the PP won 97% of the seats where elections were held. The outcome indicates that authoritarian control remains paramount in Ethiopian politics, but it also masks a more varied pattern of political competition and diversity within the ruling party, even as many of the deeper logics of the state’s political economy remained unchanged. In Oromia, the arrests of opposition leaders and boycotted elections resembled past patterns of authoritarianism under the EPRDF. Incredible levels of turnout and low levels of invalid ballots raise questions about the election in this most populous regional state. In the Amhara region, however, despite the fact that the opposition won only five of 119 seats where voting took place, opposition parties such as Ezema and NAMA campaigned and won a significant number of votes, suggesting a different pattern of competition. The combined opposition in Addis Ababa similarly won a significant portion of the total vote without capturing any seats. In the SNNPR and Sidama, localised identities and the desire to form new regional states seemed to shape political outcomes more than the PP’s medemer ideology or the party platform proclaimed from Addis Ababa. These three patterns suggest that while the new parliament is completely under the control of the PP, the ruling party itself is a diverse institution that positions itself and behaves differently in specific contexts. Local politics and the micro-dynamics of competition matter. These more complicated local political stories do not suggest that Ethiopia is on a path to democracy, but they do challenge assessments that only look at the national outcome and that miss important differences between types of electoral authoritarianism.

The appalling violence of the civil war in Ethiopia has exacerbated political polarisation and, as a consequence, political competition is increasingly framed in existential, zero-sum terms. In this analysis of the 2021 elections, we make no claims that the nascent pluralism evident in some parts of Ethiopia can survive this violent upheaval. We do argue, however, that while the outcome of the civil war remains uncertain in early 2022, political dynamics in the regional states and claims to power and resources based on local identities will shape Ethiopia’s political future. Even under conditions of electoral authoritarianism and a state of emergency, elections remain mechanisms that shape political outcomes.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.