Bekele’s release was the culmination of a three-day standoff between the government, which had previously announced its intention to release some of its many thousands of political prisoners, and the protesters, who had grown impatient with the slow pace of the promised amnesties. For nearly a month, the wind has seemed to be at the protesters’ backs: More than 6,000 political prisoners have been freed since January, meeting one of the demonstrators’ most central demands. “Within a month, the political environment has completely changed,” says Hallelujah Lulie, a political consultant based in Addis Ababa. [...]
Behind the drama of the last week lies a radical shift in Ethiopia’s political landscape, one that has the potential to lead to genuine reforms. The EPRDF, a coalition of four nominally ethnic parties that has ruled the country single-handedly since taking power in 1991, is in the midst of a vicious internal power struggle. At issue is the question of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which has long been the dominant of the four ethnically based coalition partners, despite representing only a small minority of the country (Tigrayans make up about 6 percent of the population). Yet the influence of the TPLF is waning as two rival factions, the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) and the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM) — which represent Ethiopia’s first- and second-most populous regions, respectively — vie with the TPLF for control over the coalition and, with it, the country. [...]
His administration has made significant steps toward reforming the party and the regional government. Thousands of local officials have been replaced. The revamped regional broadcaster, the Oromia Broadcasting Network, has been transformed from a government mouthpiece into an investigative watchdog, covering, among other things, land grabs, ethnic violence, and the release of Oromo political prisoners. The regional security forces seem to have changed some of the worst of their ways, too: Oromo police, once despised for beating up civilians, are now widely seen as allies in their political struggle, at times even posing for photos with protesters. The party has also launched a left-wing economic program, known as the “Oromo economic revolution,” involving land redistribution and higher taxes on foreign investors.
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