I am not a legal scholar, still less a constitutional expert. I wrote this piece on constitutional crisis to assess the consistency of the reactions of opposition parties to the four alternatives that the government presented, less so to provide…
Reacting to PM Abiy’s recent harsh and indiscriminate detraction of African and, specifically, of Ethiopian intellectuals, comments were quick to flow that, not only contested the criticisms, but more seriously exposed their dangerous implications, the most glaring of them being…
It is with great interest that I have read René Lefort’s analysis and prognosis of the political situation of Ethiopia in an article titled “A flicker in the Gloom.” There is no doubt that the recent bloody disturbances have not…
“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.” (Marx) That in the…
Recent events are bringing Ethiopia closer to the limit beyond which ethnic politics enters into a zone perilous to the alliance of the ruling parties and, by extension, to the unity of the country. Among these events, the most explosive…
Thanks to a friend, I recently read an article written by Andreas Eshete and Samuel Assefa for a conference held in Addis Ababa and titled “Reflections on Expanding Ethiopia’s Democratic Space”. The article takes note of Ethiopia’s turn toward a…
The starting occasion of this article is a video I watched on the 7th conference of Vision Ethiopia in which my old and dear friend and colleague, Dr, Befekadu Degefe, gives an insightful analysis on the requisites for economic development…
I was about to write an analysis on the obstacles that Abiy Ahmed’s reformism is increasingly facing and the possible choices that he has to overcome them when I came across René Lefort’s latest article on the situation in Ethiopia,…
Ethnic tensions and violent clashes and subsequent displacements of people in some regions of Ethiopia and around Addis Ababa have set off alarmist, if not distraught, reactions among political analysts, activists, and ordinary people. While for some these tragic events…
Ethiopians have obviously a manifest difficulty in understanding rationally both the rise of Dr. Abiy Ahmed to premiership and his implementation of far-reaching changes. Here is a man who comes from the ranks of the coalition of political parties known…