The Elections Offered Order at the Centre, Silence at the Edges

Jun 6 , 2026.

For a political veteran as controversial as Getachew Reda, last week’s national elections were never merely a contest over which name on the ballot commanded the larger support. It was also a gauge of public exhaustion with disorder, fear and the political status quo.

Watching voters queue outside polling stations on Monday, June 1, 2026, he told TRT World that the votes were “not entirely about the achievement of the incumbent as much as the rejection of violence in some parts of the country.”

That reading captures the paradox of the seventh national election.

To supporters of the ruling Prosperity Party, Prosperitians, the election was a story of numbers, turnout, order and administrative continuity. Nearly eight years into Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s (PhD) Administration, they saw the closing of the vote as another milestone in a state still capable of staging a national political exercise despite war, displacement and economic distress.

The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE), chaired by Melatwerk Hailu, reported turnout of 74pc among more than 54 million registered voters. Voting took place across much of the country, but not in Tigray Regional State, western Oromia and parts of Amhara Regional State, where political deadlock and insecurity kept large constituencies outside the process.

For critics, that caveat overwhelms the headline figure. They argue that the election was held under the shadow of a punishing cost of living, mass displacement in urban areas, persistent conflicts and a political field narrowed well before voters reached polling stations.

From affluent quarters of Addis Abeba to rural communities struggling with price shocks, economic hardship shaped the mood. A faltering one-billion-dollar Eurobond restructuring negotiation, high inflation and severe currency pressure formed the background against which voters were asked to confer legitimacy.

Elections draw legitimacy not only from ballots cast but from citizens’ confidence that their choice is freely made.

However, rather than deepen public confidence oina national political enterprise, the process appears to have left behind a troubling residue of mistrust. Public enthusiasm was muted. The contest lacked the drama and uncertainty that typically animate competitive elections.

From the outset, the incumbent, opposition parties and many voters seemed to know who was likely to prevail. The election unfolded less as an open contest for power than as a formal confirmation of an expected outcome.

Reports of coercion and pressure further darkened perceptions of the vote. Many voters appeared to have gone to the polls not out of conviction but out of fear.

The mechanics of election day were not the main source of contention. Voting in many polling stations proceeded without major incident. Observers were present. Ballot administration appeared more orderly than in some previous contests. Yet the counting process faced disruptions, and doubts persisted over whether observer assessments measured the integrity of the political process or merely endorsed the completion of a managed exercise.

The Prosperity Party’s advantage was structural as much as electoral. Its organisational reach was unmatched. Rival parties such as Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice (EZEMA) and the National Movement of Amhara (NaMA) remained localised, under-resourced and politically siloed.

None of the opposition forces managed to present a national alternative with sufficient coherence, scale or emotional appeal to unsettle the incumbent’s dominance.

The opposition’s failure was not only organisational. It was also ideological. No major opposition party succeeded in selling a compelling national vision or connecting meaningfully with voters beyond its familiar constituencies. Youth participation appeared weak, exposing either a loss of hope in political change or little confidence that votes could alter the country’s direction.

The deeper fracture, however, lay in the geography of participation. NEBE’s turnout figure stood in sharp contrast with broad exclusions from the vote. Millions of voters in Tigray Regional State were disenfranchised from the process due to a political impasse, alongside insecurity affecting parts of the Amhara and Oromia regional states, resulting in a split political reality.

The experience of an urban voter in a stable district bore little resemblance to that of a citizen in a conflict-affected area effectively disenfranchised by circumstance.

This divide was reflected in the response from international monitors. Some continental and regional observers, including the African Union (AU), led by Uhuru Kenyatta, and IGAD, praised administrative improvements and technological gains. Others raised concerns over a sharply narrowed civic space, restricted media freedom and the uneven political conditions under which the vote was held.

The result was a mixed verdict of stronger mechanics and weaker politics.

Melatwerk’s Board did introduce technical, digital and bureaucratic modernisations. For the incumbent, these offered a useful message that the state could still organise, count and claim consent despite violence, economic hardship and displacement.

These gains should not be dismissed. But neither can they conceal the deeper weaknesses of an election in which fear-driven participation, a frail opposition, predictable outcomes and the exclusion of millions from a regional state all shaped the political meaning of the result.

To critics, administrative order did not rescue the election. Instead, it exposed its limits. They see a political field narrowed before polling day, with bureaucratic competence used to mask the absence of genuine contestation. In this reading, the election was not primarily an open contest of ideas, but a managed exercise to formalise the incumbent’s dominance.

The economic context sharpened that interpretation. The government’s pursuit of a 468 million dollar agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was not separate from the ballot box. Painful economic reforms, including moves to lower entry barriers in logistics and domestic trade as well as liberalise more of the economy, were pushed around the election cycle in a bid to project modernisation, stability and seriousness to foreign creditors.

In that sense, the vote became more than a domestic political event, serving as a transaction instrument. By producing a high turnout while leaving entire conflict-affected regions outside the process, the incumbent could claim a mandate for reforms demanded by global financial institutions. State machinery, a fragmented opposition and administrative discipline combined to turn the election into a vehicle for international financial re-engagement.

The ballot was not meaningless, as tens of millions voted and tens of thousands of polling stations were calm. Administrative improvements were real.

But the process also showed the limits of order in a fractured state. It was a democratic façade over a divided country, a ballot of exclusion. The election has exposed the widening gap between Ethiopians’ aspirations for a country at peace with itself and the political realities they inhabit.

To hold a national election while structurally excluding voters from an entire regional state and several other conflict-affected areas is to engage in a consequential political fantasy. It creates the appearance of national consent while leaving unresolved the crises that have hollowed out that consent.

It presents the peace of the centre while obscuring the war of the periphery as millions voted, and millions more muted. The outcome may project a unified country on paper. However, it does not, by itself, heal the fractures beneath it.

Unless future contests restore electoral credibility, widen political participation and strengthen the winning party’s legitimacy to rule, elections risk becoming symbolic exercises rather than meaningful expressions of voters’ will.

PUBLISHED ON Jun 06,2026 [ VOL 27 , NO 1362]