Abiy Ahmed’s media operation is almost identical to the one under the late dictator Meles Zenawi
Ethiopia’s new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, is waging a war on the state-run media.
The former intelligence official ended the dominant Focus FM news network’s five years of monopoly over Ethiopia’s state radio and television broadcasts – leaving it a state-owned monopoly. And within a week he had abolished the media policy of his predecessor, Meles Zenawi.
On Wednesday night, he issued a warning to the right wing journalists with the banned Ethiopia Reform and Growth Party (ERGP), whose chief told lawmakers in parliament this week they had no right to self-government, no right to free speech, and no right to use state media to attack their opponents.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the former security official who now commands Ethiopia’s military, General Afwerki. Photograph: Bucya Shaya/EPA
The resignation of ERGP’s chief, however, did not spur the prime minister on to address the vexed issue of self-governance, instead he has asked the ERGP’s opponents – who dominate the Horn of Africa country’s parliament – to voluntarily hand over their parliamentary seats.
Even before he became prime minister, though, Abiy’s media operation was almost identical to that of Meles – only he started to talk about protecting media freedom. On a visit to the US at the start of his tenure, the new prime minister told then-President Barack Obama: “This will not be government-controlled. This will be a government that governs with power, with trust, with choice and respect for citizens.”
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed at a reception ceremony at the Change House complex, near the seat of the Government on 15 January 2019 in Addis Ababa. Photograph: Keresze Bekele/EPA
Ever since the prime minister became prime minister, he has reiterated his pledges in public. “A government that governs without trust, without power, without choice, and without respect for citizens must change,” he said last December at the EU-financed Central African Regional Integration Facility conference. “You cannot have a government where people are not free to express themselves.”
The promise is part of his campaign to develop transparency in a dictatorship which has ruled this country of 100 million people by almost single-party fiat for 25 years.
Abiy’s campaign is seen as a risky strategy at a time when the dictator is still alive and has won plaudits from the army in Ethiopia’s violent ethnic war.
When Zenawi took power in 1991, he made one thing clear: that opposition would be shut down and never allowed to flourish. Now his successor, Abiy, is trying to heal some of the wounds of injustice. But he also appears to be pushing the line with a resolute, if rarely articulated, determination to “reform”.
He says he will build a new state based on “rule of law” – which also means private property rights. He says he will uphold the constitution. But he is also telling his followers the state is built on hegemonic traditions, and human rights must not be an impediment to sustaining state supremacy.
For the time being, many observers are reading into the prime minister’s blunt criticism of Zenawi’s media policy and expression of independence as incitement to violence. Zenawi vowed that the press would “remain uncensored”, and press freedom is defined in law as freedom from state censorship.
The prime minister says a new media policy will be presented to parliament soon. “We have to have a good system to choose among personalities and publications,” he said.