THE PARTY AS PROPERTY

Good evening. In December 2019, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed did something that seemed, on the surface, to be a bold political reform. He dissolved the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front—the ethnic-based coalition that had governed Ethiopia for nearly three decades—and replaced it with a single, unified party: the Prosperity Party . The official narrative was one of national unity, of transcending ethnic divisions to forge a new Ethiopian identity .

But what has emerged over the past six years is something far different. The Prosperity Party is not a democratic institution representing the will of its members. It is, to put it bluntly, Abiy Ahmed’s personal property—a political vehicle designed not to facilitate collective decision-making but to consolidate his grip on power. He is the choir master of everything that happens within the party, and he listens to no one.

This analysis examines the structure and functioning of the Prosperity Party, demonstrating how it has become an instrument of personal rule rather than a genuine political organization. We will explore the evidence of Abiy’s unilateral control, the systematic silencing of dissent within party ranks, and the transformation of parliament into a rubber-stamp institution. And we will consider what this means for Ethiopia’s democratic prospects.

THE ORIGINS: FROM COALITION TO PERSONAL VEHICLE

To understand the Prosperity Party, we must understand its origins. The EPRDF, was a coalition of four ethnic-based parties. This structure created mechanisms for negotiation and compromise among different regional and ethnic interests. Decision-making was collective .

Abiy’s dissolution of the EPRDF and creation of the Prosperity Party changed all of that. The new party replaced a coalition with a unitary structure. Regional parties that had once enjoyed autonomy were merged into a single national organization under Abiy’s direct control . The party’s own official history describes this as correcting “the previous political mindset that divided Ethiopia” . But in practice, it eliminated the checks and balances that had existed within the ruling coalition.

The result, as the CSIS Africa Program has noted, is that “the Prosperity Party holds little regard for the 1995 settlement that marked the beginning of the current Ethiopian constitution” . The party was conceived not to strengthen federalism but to undermine it, replacing ethnic federalism with centralized control from Addis Ababa .

THE PERSONAL PARTY: ABY AS CHORUSMASTER

What makes the Prosperity Party Abiy’s personal property is the extent to which he personally controls every aspect of its functioning. The party does not have independent decision-making structures; it exists to implement Abiy’s vision.

Consider the party’s ideological foundation. The Prosperity Party is explicitly built around Abiy’s personal philosophy of “Medemer” (synergy) . The party’s official website states that “the Medemer (Synergy) philosophy was formulated as a potent remedy, serving as the conceptual framework guiding the overall reform” . This is not a party platform developed through collective debate; it is a personal philosophy imposed from above.

Party leaders are not elected independently but are trained and selected by Abiy. In September 2024, Abiy presided over a 12-day “leadership capacity building training program” for over 2,000 senior officials, where he “urged the leaders to adopt more effective, service-driven leadership” and “stressed that leadership requires self-sacrifice and commitment” . In November 2025, he conducted another intensive 11-day training program, this time on “Sectoral Advancement in the View of the Medemer State” . These are not democratic deliberations; they are indoctrination sessions where Abiy instructs party leaders on what to think and how to act.

Abiy’s role as party president is fundamentally that of a choirmaster. He sets the tune, and the party sings it. When he speaks, party members applaud on command. In the July 2026 parliamentary session, a Prosperity Party lawmaker, Mohammed Ahmed, “called the chamber to its feet in a standing ovation for the Premier” . This is not spontaneous enthusiasm; it is orchestrated performance.

THE SILENCING OF DISSENT: NO ROOM FOR DIFFERING VOICES

A defining characteristic of the Prosperity Party is its intolerance of dissent. This is not a party where members can raise concerns, challenge leadership decisions, or advocate alternative policies. It is a party where loyalty to Abiy is the only acceptable position.

The parliamentary record is telling. The outgoing parliament, which sat from 2021 to 2026, “functioned less as a vibrant arena for democratic debate and more as a predictable echo chamber for executive fiat” . “Throughout its tenure, this assembly offered virtually no institutional space where alternative political views could be robustly expressed, nor did it meaningfully discharge its solemn, constitutional duty of oversight” . “Ministers were rarely subjected to searching cross-examinations, state expenditures were rubber-stamped with minimal friction, and critical decisions on internal security were passed with near-unanimous uniformity” .

Even within the Prosperity Party’s own ranks, there is no genuine debate. The party’s official narrative, as articulated by Abiy in parliamentary addresses, insists that the government has “done a stellar job across the political, economic, social, and diplomatic spheres” . When confronted with realities of regional instability, insurgencies, crushing inflation, and deep social fractures, “the government routinely denies or downplays its own role in the crises. Instead, it systematically pivots to the argument that it merely inherited these deep-seated problems from previous administrations” .

This denial of reality is not accidental; it is a deliberate strategy to avoid accountability. When opposition MP Dr. Dessalegn Chanie catalogued the country’s crises in July 2026—”civil war, spiralling debt and a ‘generational catastrophe’ in the country’s schools”—Abiy’s response was not engagement but dismissal . “I wish it wasn’t the last speech for you,” Abiy told the MP, a remark that “carried an unmistakable double meaning in the wake of an election that has left the opposition holding a sliver of the chamber” .

THE RUBBER-STAMP PARLIAMENT: THE MYTH OF LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT

The 2026 general elections have cemented the Prosperity Party’s dominance. The party won 438 seats out of 501 contested—roughly 90 percent of those for which results were announced . The party “needed 274 to secure a majority” ; it won well over that, rendering the opposition effectively irrelevant.

The party’s “strategic decision not to contest around 15 percent of parliamentary seats” was a calculated move “aimed at engineering a multi-party appearance” . But this produced “only marginal diversity on the benches. A tiny handful of opposition and independent members will sit in the 547-seat house, leaving the governing superstructure fundamentally intact” . The result, as the CSIS analysis notes, is that the supermajority “removes any legislative impediment” to Abiy’s agenda but creates an “accountability deficit” in the process .

The Egyptian Center for Strategic Studies observed that the 2026 elections “reproduced a structural imbalance in the distribution of power within Ethiopia’s party system” . The party landscape reveals “a practical concentration of competitive capacity in the Prosperity Party and the Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice Party (EZEMA), in contrast to the evident fragmentation of the opposition, which continues to suffer from organizational weakness, internal divisions, and limited ability to establish a nationwide presence” .

What does this supermajority mean in practice? It means the parliament will continue to serve as a rubber stamp for executive decisions. The Reporter Ethiopia analysis warned that “there is no realistic expectation among the public that the current set of severe political, economic, and social challenges besetting Ethiopians will be addressed effectively by a body so thoroughly monolithic” . The incoming parliament, it concluded, will “merely duplicate the defensive, sycophantic habits of its predecessor” .

THE PERSONALIZATION OF POWER: WHY HE LISTENS TO NO ONE

The fundamental driver of this system is Abiy’s personalization of power. He does not listen to party members, cabinet colleagues, or parliamentarians because he does not believe they have anything useful to contribute. He sees himself as a visionary leader whose role is to instruct, not to consult.

This self-perception is rooted in his religious worldview. As The Africa Report notes, “You cannot understand how Abiy governs without grasping the central place religion holds in his worldview” . “Abiy sees himself as an instrument of divine will, and believes his leadership carries a sacred purpose. That outlook leaves little room for dissent. It is not a particularly democratic cast of mind” . The party’s name itself—”Prosperity”—is “drawn directly from ‘prosperity theology,’ the doctrine holding that wealth and health are signs of divine blessing” .

Abiy’s instructions to party leaders reveal this authoritarian mindset. In his addresses, he presents himself as the source of wisdom and the party as the vehicle for his vision. The “Medemer” philosophy is his personal creation; the party exists to implement it. When he speaks, he expects obedience—not debate, not questions, not challenges.

The 2025 party congress, which Abiy described as “crucial” for “creating ideas that will guide Ethiopia for the coming years,” was framed as a process of “electing leaders who can implement these ideas” . The emphasis is consistently on implementation, not deliberation. “Merely identifying problems is insufficient,” Abiy has warned; “a party must offer solutions” . This is a technocratic vision that leaves no room for political contestation.

THE COSTS OF THE CHOIR: WHAT ONE-MAN RULE HAS WROUGHT

The cost of Abiy’s one-man rule is measurable across every domain of Ethiopian life. The conflicts in Amhara, Oromia, and Tigray continue unabated, with no political resolution in sight. The economy is in crisis, with inflation eating away at household purchasing power. The middle class, according to opposition MP Dessalegn, has “vanished, leaving only two classes: a few ultra-wealthy individuals and the vast majority languishing in poverty” .

Yet Abiy remains unaccountable. He can dismiss these realities because there is no institutional mechanism—inside the party, inside parliament, or anywhere else—that can hold him to account. The party is his, and he has made sure that no one within it can challenge him.

As The Reporter Ethiopia concluded, “A parliament’s legitimacy is derived not from the magnitude of the ruling party’s electoral dominance, but from its willingness to look the nation’s problems squarely in the face. Ethiopia cannot navigate its current crosscurrents of polarization if its primary legislative body remains paralyzed by conformity” .

: THE PARTY AS PERSONAL PROPERTY

As this analysis concludes, we must ask: can there be genuine governance when a ruling party is the personal property of one individual? The evidence from Ethiopia suggests the answer is no.

Abiy Ahmed has created a political vehicle perfectly suited to his purposes: a party that cannot challenge him, a parliament that cannot oversee him, and a system that cannot hold him accountable. The Prosperity Party is his choir, and he is its sole conductor. When he raises his baton, the chorus sings. When he is silent, they are silent. There is no room for improvisation, no space for dissent, no mechanism for correction.

This is not governance; it is personal rule. And the cost of that personal rule is being paid every day by ordinary Ethiopians who cannot afford food, who have lost loved ones to conflict, who have been silenced for speaking truth to power. Until the Prosperity Party becomes something more than Abiy’s personal property—until it becomes a genuine political organization that can deliberate, debate, and hold its leaders accountable—Ethiopia will continue to be governed not by laws and institutions but by the whim of one man.

And that is no way to build a nation.