Constitutional reform could challenge decades-old assumptions about Ethiopia’s political order
For generations, Amhara political thought rested on an implicit premise: Whatever ideological language successive governments adopted, the Ethiopian state remained familiar political territory. Regimes changed, but Amhara politics continued to see itself as closely tied to the country’s governing center. Today, that assumption is being tested as never before.
The constitutional reforms reportedly being prepared through Ethiopia’s National Dialogue Conference could mark the completion of a historic transition already underway: the relocation of Amhara politics from the center of the Ethiopian state to its periphery.
Many within the Amhara political establishment have yet to fully confront the implications.
Critics of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) often portray the coalition as little more than a vehicle for Tigrayan domination. There is truth in the observation that the TPLF exercised disproportionate influence through its control of the military, intelligence services, and security apparatus. Yet this should not obscure another important institutional reality.
Structurally, the EPRDF rested on four constituent parties: the TPLF, the ANDM, the OPDO, and the SEPDM. Each enjoyed equal representation within the coalition’s highest executive bodies, regardless of the population size of the constituencies they represented.
That arrangement proved decisive in 2018, when the OPDO and ANDM combined to outvote the TPLF and propel Abiy Ahmed to the premiership. Such a realignment would have been impossible had the coalition functioned solely as an instrument of TPLF rule.
The episode demonstrated that while the TPLF possessed enormous informal influence, the coalition itself did not structurally privilege one ethnic constituency over the others.
That equilibrium has since disappeared.
The Prosperity Party replaced the coalition model with a single national party. Although presented as a move beyond ethnic politics, it introduced a different organizing principle: demographic majoritarianism.
Rather than equal constituent parties negotiating power, influence under the new arrangement increasingly reflects the numerical weight of Ethiopia’s population.
Official Prosperity Party figures illustrate this political logic. Of the party’s 45-member Executive Committee, 10 seats (22.2%) are held by Oromo officials, eight (17.8%) by Amhara, and four (8.9%) by Somali representatives, with the remaining positions distributed among other regional constituencies.
The party’s bylaws formalize this principle. They stipulate that representation in the General Assembly, Central Committee, Executive Committee, and party branch structures should be determined by the population size of each region and the number of party members it contributes. In other words, demographic weight is not merely reflected in leadership composition; it is embedded in the rules governing representation.
As Ethiopia’s largest ethnolinguistic group, the Oromo naturally command greater representation throughout the party hierarchy. Amhara leaders occupy an important but secondary position, followed by other constituencies according to demographic size.
This represents a profound institutional shift.
Power is no longer distributed through negotiated parity among founding parties but through electoral and demographic arithmetic.
For many Amhara elites, this was precisely the outcome they did not anticipate when they helped engineer Abiy Ahmed’s rise.
The ANDM—later renamed the Amhara Democratic Party—entered its alliance with the OPDO to eventually form the Prosperity Party believing both shared an interest in dismantling TPLF dominance.
Many within Amhara politics envisioned an “OroMara” partnership that would either govern Ethiopia jointly or eventually restore a more centralized Ethiopian state in which Amhara political influence would once again correspond to its historical role in state formation.
Instead, the alliance produced something quite different.
Rather than correcting the TPLF’s extra-institutional dominance while preserving institutional parity, the new arrangement abandoned parity altogether in favor of demographic hierarchy.
From this perspective, Amhara politics exchanged the status of an equal institutional partner for that of a permanently junior partner within a political order increasingly shaped by Oromo demographic advantage.
Whether this outcome was intentional or an unintended consequence of institutional redesign is almost beside the point. Nor should the increased representation of Oromo officials within the party hierarchy be interpreted as equivalent to greater political empowerment of the Oromo public.
The Prosperity Party’s record shows that officials, regardless of ethnicity or regional origin, have generally operated within a centralized political structure rather than as direct representatives of their constituencies. Nevertheless, the broader implications of the new institutional order remain difficult to ignore.
Reports suggest that the government intends to use the National Dialogue process to move Ethiopia away from ethnic federalism toward administrative regions organized around geography and economic integration.
Many observers interpret this as the triumph of Ethiopianist constitutional thinking over ethnically defined federalism.
That interpretation, however, risks overlooking the deeper transformation taking place.
Removing ethnic labels from regional boundaries does not necessarily eliminate ethnically structured power. If decision-making continues to follow demographic weight within centralized institutions, the disappearance of ethnic regions may simply coexist with a political system in which larger constituencies continue to determine national outcomes while smaller ones negotiate concessions.
The state may become geographically organized while remaining politically majoritarian.
The recent transformation of Addis Ababa illustrates this broader dynamic. The city increasingly reflects the demographic, cultural, and economic rise of Oromo political influence, suggesting that centralization alone may not restore the political landscape many traditional Ethiopianists once envisioned.
For Amhara politicians, this creates an uncomfortable paradox. The centralized state they long advocated may no longer be one in which they occupy the political center.
The past several years have forced an unprecedented reckoning among an Amhara intelligentsia that historically understood state power as an instrument of national cohesion rather than ethnic exclusion.
Many now find themselves confronting the same center–periphery dynamics that previously drove other communities toward liberation movements—movements that Amhara political traditions often dismissed as unpatriotic or difficult to understand.
This is the dilemma confronting Amhara politics.
Should it support constitutional reforms that dismantle ethnic federalism, knowing that the resulting political order may institutionalize Oromo demographic predominance?
Or should it reject those reforms, even if doing so requires embracing the very ethnonational politics that many Amhara intellectuals historically criticized?
The emerging divisions within the Fano movement suggest that this debate is already underway.
Figures such as Zemene Kassie and the Amhara Fano National Force (AFNF) articulate an “Amhara First” vision centered on protecting the territorial integrity and political autonomy of the Amhara region.
This stands in marked contrast to the Ethiopianist orientation associated with Eskinder Nega and the Amhara Fano Popular Organization (AFPO), whose political project rests on the assumption that a post-ethnic Ethiopian state remains both achievable and desirable.
The balance appears to be shifting toward the former. The newly established Amhara Fano National Movement (AFNM), created through the merger of AFNF and AFPO, has elevated Zemene Kassie’s regionalist approach as a more influential force within the movement. Eskinder Nega’s Ethiopianist project now occupies a more contested and uncertain position within the evolving Fano landscape.
If this trajectory continues, Amhara politics may be entering a phase that would once have seemed almost unimaginable: defining itself primarily as a regional national movement rather than as the custodian of a unified Ethiopian political tradition.
Against this backdrop, the constitutional changes expected from the National Dialogue may compel Amhara politics to take an irreversible position on the question of ethnic politics.
Whether it embraces a post-ethnic Ethiopian state or adopts a more explicitly regional political identity, the decision will have consequences far beyond constitutional design. It will shape the future trajectory of Amhara politics, Ethiopia’s federal order, and the wider balance of power in the Horn of Africa.
If Abiy Ahmed succeeds in bringing the Amhara political establishment behind his reforms, one of the most significant obstacles to his broader regional strategy would be removed. The alignment among anti-government forces—including elements within Fano, the TPLF, Eritrea, and Sudanese actors—would lose one of its most important links. The government would gain greater freedom of movement across the strategic Amhara corridor in any future confrontation involving Tigray or Eritrea.
For supporters of the reforms, this could strengthen state cohesion and reduce the likelihood of prolonged internal fragmentation.
This, however, would come at the cost of dissolving the Amhara region’s ethnoterritorial status while leaving Amhara political influence permanently subordinate within a demographic hierarchy.
Rejecting the reforms carries equally profound implications.
Doing so would effectively place Amhara politics alongside the regional nationalist movements it has historically opposed. It would represent an acknowledgment that Amhara interests, like those of other regional constituencies, may be best protected through robust territorial autonomy rather than through claims to Ethiopia’s political center.
In other words, Amhara politics would have to cease to be the politics of the center and embrace the politics of the periphery.
Such a shift would amount to a profound break with one of the defining traditions of modern Ethiopian politics.
The National Dialogue, therefore, is about more than constitutional redesign. It may determine whether Amhara politics continues to see itself as the custodian of the Ethiopian state or adapts to a political order in which it becomes one regional constituency among several competing for influence.
Query or correction? Email us
While this commentary contains the author’s opinions, Ethiopia Insight will correct factual errors.
Main photo: Zemene Kassie delivers a speech during a graduation ceremony for Fano recruits in Metekel, July 2026. Source: Social media.
Published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
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When You have denied Ethiopian nationalism and substituted by ethnic based nationalism , You lose the country's economic nationalism. When You have a country nationalism , the country protect jobs for its citizens , industries for the country benafit and the country natural resources that would be a game changer of the country's Economy, but my country being unfortunate and
sold the major game changers industries like food and behavrge industries, above all a good example is beer the industries which generate 500 billion birr.
Who carries my country nationalism , my God protect Ethiopian people.
There is a great deal to unpack in this article. I appreciate the author for taking on the difficult task of engaging with the evolving nature of Amhara nationalism in a thoughtful way. It is an important contribution to a conversation that is often reduced to slogans or caricatures. That said, I would like to respectfully challenge several of the article's key assertions.
1. The EPRDF coalition was not a genuine power-sharing arrangement
The suggestion that the four-party coalition represented a form of democratic governance in which each member enjoyed meaningful and equal power does not align with the historical record. Numerous former members of both the Amhara and Oromo parties have publicly described how the coalition functioned in practice: decision-making was highly centralized within the TPLF leadership, leaving little room for independent political action by the constituent parties.
Many have explained that regional parties largely served as rubber stamps for decisions made at the center under Meles Zenawi. It was only after sustained political unrest in both the Amhara and Oromia regions that the TPLF was compelled to accept political reforms—initially limited and largely cosmetic. The subsequent creation of the Prosperity Party, along with the restructuring of the security apparatus under Abiy Ahmed, fundamentally shifted where power was concentrated.
For this reason, I do not believe it is accurate to argue that Amharas, as an ethnic group, possessed meaningful decentralized power during the EPRDF era, nor that they have somehow been deprived of authority in the current system. The real issue was never decentralization; it was the concentration of power at the center.
2. The "majoritarian logic" argument is unconvincing
I also disagree with the claim that democracy would inevitably produce majoritarian domination by the Oromo. Ethiopia's demographic reality simply does not support that conclusion.
No single ethnic group constitutes more than 50 percent of the country's population. In any genuinely free and fair democratic system, no group could govern alone. Electoral success would necessarily depend on coalition-building, negotiation, and cooperation across ethnic and political lines.
From this perspective, population size has never been the central concern. The more fundamental question is whether post-reform Ethiopia can become a genuinely democratic state where political competition is based on democratic legitimacy rather than ethnic engineering or coercive state power.
3. Understanding the drivers of contemporary Amhara nationalism
Finally, I believe the article underestimates the motivations behind the emergence of contemporary Amhara nationalism.
Even if many young Amhara nationalists reject a new territorial federalism, it does not automatically follow that they seek a return to the status quo or wish to preserve the existing constitutional order.
In my view, the movement is driven primarily by the lived experiences of Amhara communities over the past three decades—particularly those living outside the Amhara region and those who feel marginalized within the current federal arrangement. Many perceive the territorial boundaries established during the TPLF and OLF era as having been drawn without meaningful consultation or consideration of Amhara communities. These arrangements have contributed to political underrepresentation, recurring displacement, and, in many cases, violence against Amhara populations.
From this perspective, what many see as the original flaw of the current federal system is not simply that it is ethnically organized, but that it was constructed against the interest of Amhara people. Whether one agrees with this interpretation or not, it is difficult to understand the rise of Amhara nationalism without acknowledging these historical grievances. Note, recently, a former OLF leader admitted how they asked the TPLF to include Addis Ababa with in Oromia regions, it was as random as that.
For that reason, I do not believe it is accurate to assume that Amhara nationalists are primarily seeking to preserve the current constitutional order or its regional boundaries. Many appear to be advocating for a fundamentally different political settlement rather than defending the status quo which I dont genuinly know (it is filled with grievance, nostalgia and anger)
A final observation
Beyond these disagreements, I believe the author is largely correct in highlighting Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's increasing centralization of power and the ambitions among segments of the Oromo political elite to reshape the Ethiopian state in that direction (I do belive that if the party was organized in four parties the way it was before, the Abiy administration wouldn't survive this long, this is to say - Abiy undestands crafting the state aparatus in a manner that concentrates more power to him). However, whether those ambitions can ultimately be realized is another question. Ethiopia's political landscape has become far more fragmented, contested, and resistant to centralized authority than at any point in recent history. The realities on the ground suggest that imposing any single political vision—whether centralized or otherwise—will be far more difficult than many political actors anticipate.
Amhara nationalism seeking to maintain a central position in the governance of Ethiopia is impractical after the dramatic rise of Oromo power, both in demographics and geography. But the Amharas are not in total loss. Amharic is still the official language; the federal government is largely run by Amhara bureaucrats and those who are assimilated. Abiy is Amhara on one side of his lineage, he seems nostalgic about the imperial order - power concentrated in his hands.
The National Dialogue is more like a public relations gimmick, because it is neither national in scope nor is it a dialogue. Tigray was excluded from the dialogue, because Abiy has essentially ruled out any dialogue with TPLF, thus rendering the national dialogue a national embarrassment.
Abiy's prosperity party (an odd name in the midst of poverty) was designed as Amhara/Oromo alliance against TPLF. But Abiy decided to carry the project one step further, war against TPLF which turned into a war on Tigray. A region still isolated and in a siege-like condition. Abiy the medemer man shows no interest to bring Tigray back into the national fold. An overall political scene of dystopia in Ethiopia.
At the risk of being pedantic: Amharic is not the official language of Ethiopia. It is the working language, which holds significantly less weight. Second, if the maintenance of a group's language status and the employment of a group's members in the country's bureaucracy counts towards something, pre-2020 Tigray would have had less reasons to be a protest state.
Your line about his maternal Amhara extract, which then implies that it somehow feeds into whatever alleged imperial ambitions he has is a dog-whistle that I'm just tired of hearing. Abiy joined OPDO at the twilight of the Derg regime. He then rose through the OPDO ranks: became the deputy president of Oromia region, elected to a seat in the HPR as an OPDO candidate. For all that we and the federal constitution cares, he's an Oromo national. If he is dreaming about becoming the first Ethiopian emperor since the revolution, I attribute it to the severely centralized state that he inherited from the EPRDF.
Tigray is a protest state. Compared to other regions, the rise of Abiy and OPDO put it in a weird place. This was mainly thanks to the mismatch between the constitution's promises and the reality, which came as a result of the TPLF being a bad-fath actor that betrayed all its fellow liberation groups. A Tigrayan elite capture replaced by an Oromo elite capture was only felt in Tigray. Not joining PP and deciding to hold elections was a bet made by the TPLF, where it expected other regions, more specifically EPRDF coalition-member parties, would revolt on Abiy. TPLF's hopes didn't materialize for the same logic that Abiy's Ethiopianist talking-points will likely not materialize in country-wide regime support in a future conflict with Eritrea.
The problem with Tigray is that it cannot accept the mismatch between the constitution's promises and the reality of a centralized government that grew unabated since the early days of the EPRDF, unless it is the one shooting the shots. For all Abiy's faults, which includes ethnic cleansing and a possible genocide, relinquishing any kind of power projection from within Tigray is the respectable choice.
A reply to digadebisa. The Amharas have a large representation in the bureaucracy of the federal government, making them the permanent government, meaning the constant presence, with the ability to influence how administrative power is exercised in the country.
To describe Tigray as a protest state is a shallow statement. Tigray has been repeatedly the target of warfare, cruel and vengeful, from the time of the Derg to Abiy's war on Tigray, with its genocidal implications, an observation you have touched upon.
There is no power projection from Tigray that you assert. The overriding goal in Tigray is survival, the will to survive, to defend itself in the face of recurring Amhara / Tigray tribal animosity and warfare.
What is noticeable in your comment is your bias and prejudice against TPLF and Tigray, because of your distorted view regarding Tigray, the hardship and political dilemma Tigray has to endure.
Response to nimintai:
Your first paragraph is just truism with no point posited. Same fact applies to Tigray and Tigrayans, or any other group, throughout the regimes that have come and gone.
Post-2018 Tigray was very much a protest state. This isn't a point of contention. Go debunk my argument on the mismatch between the constitution's promises and the reality that was EPRDF/TPLF rule.
I don't want to argue with you on Derg's intentions vis-a-vis Tigray during the civil war. However, Derg was a cruel communist regime that didn't discriminate when carrying out its killings.
"There is no power projection from Tigray that you assert." Be careful with your falsifiable claims. Explain to me the state-of-affairs in Ethiopia between 1991-2018.
The panoply of disputes that plagues the relationship between the Amhara nation and the Tigray nation comes as a direct result of how the Tigrayan state chose to structure the state, predicate identity and sovereignty, and draw de-limitations. Every side is in it for survival.
I'm not going to speculate on what prejudices you have. I've debated with your elk that have used the same buzzwords before. You're not going to find me on the defense here. No doubt that Tigrayans are going through hardship. But for the political dilemma Tigray finds itself today, it is the result of explicit choices it actively made vis-a-vis Amhara, Eritrea, and the rest of Ethiopia for the past 50 years.
The tplf loyalists demand you agree with their viewpoints, no but's or if's. Any fact's you state regarding the tplf is seen as an attack on Tigrayan's. They are incapable of separating the political entity - the tplf - from the average tigrayan individual. Clearly, the tplf is losing favor in tigray. Otherwise, groups like the tigray peace force would not exist and would not have declared war on tplf.
responding to nimintai because they disabled the replies:
Thank you for conceding my points. Sure, I'm a loyalist to a party that I accused of ethnic cleansing and genocide. But you're totally 100% not a TPLFite with totally originally points that I've never heard before. Do whatever that moves your boat.
To digadebisa. In your eagerness to assign all blame on TPLF, you sound like a PP loyalist. Hence, I find it pointless to carry on with the comments. Over and out.