Egypt Is Concerned; Abiy Ahmed Wins New Presidential Elections
The Ethiopian parliament on Wednesday approved the new government, headed by Abiy Ahmed, who was re-elected for a new five-year term amid major challenges.
Ethiopia's parliamentary elections, which were postponed twice due to the pandemic, are the first general elections in the country since Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in 2018.
The sixth election in the country's history comes amid international concern over breaches and doubts about the integrity of the electoral process, with most opposition figures imprisoned, boosting the chances of Abiy Ahmed's party winning.
Ethiopia's elections are seen as going to determine the future of the country's federal system and how popular Abiy Ahmed and his ruling party are, amid unprecedented internal and external crises.
Notable changes in Abiy Ahmed's new 22-portfolio government included the participation of opposition parties in three ministries for the first time in three decades, in a line-up that retained 11 faces of the former ministerial cabin, and the accession of 11 new ministers, most notably Defense, Water and Irrigation.
Economic Challenge
Abiy Ahmed will have the challenge of improving the economy, which has been markedly affected by the massive spending and losses of about $1 billion in the war in the Tigray region, according to the United Nations.
In fact, Ethiopia’s pre-war economy was one of the fastest growing in the world, averaging 10 percent between 2010 and 2019, according to World Bank data. But the growth rate has fallen to 6.1 percent over the past two years.
The economic downturn has had a negative impact on inflation; the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in July recorded a 25 percent rise, the highest monthly rise in decades.
The war also affected the business confidence index and the value of the national currency, which fell 23 percent, with the dollar currently at 46 percent from 35 percent last October, and unemployment rose to more than 17 percent.
But on the other hand, there are many power papers that Abiy Ahmed could use; despite the circumstances of the internal war and the global COVID-19 pandemic, foreign investment rose by $3.9 billion last year, the economy minister announced in September.
Tigray Predicament
According to the New York Times, Abiy Ahmed has been a bright hope for his country after arriving in power four years ago that impressed the West with his reform plans and his success in making a deal with neighbor Eritrea, so much so that the former intelligence officer received the Nobel Prize for Peace.
"War creates violent and ruthlessly savage men," Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said when he won the Nobel Peace Prize less than a year ago.
But in just nine months, Abiy Ahmed's image has been shattered, and he is known as an "autocratic" leader who launched a brutal military campaign in Tigray province, and the civil war that has broken out in the region since last November.
Within three weeks, his forces made their way through Tigray, in northern Ethiopia, to overthrow the territory's ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (FLN), after accusing them of attacking a federal military base there.
The Tigray regional crisis, which has erupted since November 2020, as well as other ethnic conflicts in various Ethiopian regions, highlights the scale of the challenge Abiy Ahmed can face in managing ethnic diversity in the coming years.
According to African writer and researcher Abdel Moneim Abu Idris, Ethiopia has a long history of growing civil conflicts.
“The issue of managing diversity and resolving ethnic conflicts will take up a large part of Abiy Ahmed's concerns in the coming period because it poses a real local and regional dilemma given the significant tribal overlap between Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea, and Somalia,” Abu Idris said.
Ethiopia, with a population of about 120 million, lives on more than 90 ethnic groups, the largest of which is Arumu, Amhara, Somalia, and Tready.
Regional Disputes
The regional dimension is one of the important elements that is expected to top the files of the new Abiy Ahmed administration.
In addition to the thorny and volatile relationship with neighbors Eritrea and Somalia; the worsening Renaissance dam crisis with Sudan and Egypt and the border crisis with Sudan; the war in the Territory of Tigray has produced considerable international and regional tension.
Ethiopian researcher Musa Shekho said that contrary to the broad regional and international support and welcome that Abiy Ahmed gained after coming to power in 2018, which culminated in his Nobel Peace Prize, the situation changed completely with the start of his second term.
"There are major challenges: the crisis in the territory of Tigray and the associated regional and international overlaps, as well as the disputes of the Renaissance Dam with the downstream countries of Sudan and Egypt and the border with Sudan," Shekho said.
Shekho expects the Ethiopian government to adopt a dialogue strategy in dealing with the three files.
According to Shekho, Abiy Ahmed will be keen to achieve Ethiopian interests with a focus on promoting stability in the Horn of Africa and Ethiopia's neighbors.
He stresses that Abiy Ahmed will be based on the broad popular mandate he received in the last elections, which will strengthen his position in dealing with local and regional challenges.
GERD Dam
Abiy Ahmed and his party treated the dam file as a national project that is expected to move the country from economic chaos and low standard of living to broad horizons of prosperity, growth, and development at all levels, and despite these slogans to the reality of the project, the message succeeded in achieving its goals, which is to rally around the national leadership in the face of challenges in order to implement the project of the Ethiopian era.
Egypt and Sudan have been exchanging accusations with Ethiopia for the responsibility of stalling the dam negotiations, sponsored by the African Union for months, as part of a negotiating process that began nearly 10 years ago, due to differences over construction, operation, filling, and information sharing.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on the occasion of his inauguration for a second term that recognizing Ethiopian rights in the Nile waters would pave the way for the equitable use of its water for all Niles, while the Ethiopian president confirmed that his country would benefit from the Renaissance Dam.
On the occasion of its inauguration, he said that the Renaissance Dam had many benefits, not only for Ethiopia, but also for regional interdependence and the strengthening of neighbourly relations.
“The Nile means to Ethiopians the strength and embodiment of our existence and our blood vein, connecting us to its magic and its unaffected power, from which we derive our strength," he said.
He considered the GERD to be the Ethiopian citizen's project and pledged to complete the construction of the dam.
Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde said her country would benefit from the Renaissance in development, without harming downstream countries.
Zewde rejected external interventions in the affairs of the Horn of Africa, the Red Sea, and Bab al-Mandab, noting that Ethiopia would not be a spectator to interventions that directly threatened its security.
"With regard to water cooperation with our neighbours, cooperation must be based on interests and based on understandings and laws that are in the interest of all, especially in passing rivers and equitable use of water."
Possible Scenarios
Writer and researcher specializing in Horn of Africa Affairs, Hashim Hamed, believes that the Abiy Ahmed government's dealings with Egypt and Sudan will not depart from three main scenarios, all of which are in the interest of consolidating the government in its new mandate, allowing it to pass its internal agenda and regain its declining popularity, which can be based on its political career for years to come.
The first scenario relates to moving forward with the strategy of intransigence and imposing a de facto policy with regard to the Renaissance Dam, including the complete and final withdrawal from the Nile Water Agreement signed in 1959, which divided water quotas by about 18.5 billion cubic meters for Sudan and 55.5 billion cubic meters for Egypt, on which Egypt is based on its negotiating track.
The second scenario is for Addis Ababa to employ this file to support and expand its continental influence, by strengthening its weight across the African Union and sending messages of support to some neighboring forces, such as Kenya, which, despite its good relationship with Cairo, Kenya tended to the Ethiopian side during efforts to internationalize the issue and called for a resumption of negotiations within the framework of the African Union; contrary to the Egyptian vision at the time.
The third scenario is for Ethiopia to try to strengthen its rapprochement with Eritrea, in the face of a possible rebellion from Tigray, and sending a warning message to other opposition factions, especially in light of the desire of Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki to make greater rapprochement and cooperation at all levels.
