Abiy Ahmed, November 2017. Wikicommons/Odaw. Some rights reserved.
Abiy Ahmed has already gone down in history by breaking – in just a few weeks – almost every rule in the age-old Ethiopian way of governing. His liberal reforms and diplomatic openings fulfilled the pressing demands of the vast majority of Ethiopians, and thus brought to a halt the infernal spiral into which the country was headed. But Abiy Ahmed made three mammoth strategic errors.
First, he believed that – or at least acted as if – he could carry out his agenda by relying only on his charisma, his immense popularity and a handful of stalwarts, a kind of “team Abiy”. In short, he thought he could de-institutionalize his rule. Ably Ahmed… thought he could de-institutionalize his rule.
