In May 2019 Ethiopia Insight published a viewpoint by René Lefort arguing that Ethiopia needed clearer ideological party lines and stronger grassroots democracy, starting with local elections, to end political paralysis.
Lefort said the lasting fight remained the “question of nationalities”: citizen-based liberals around Ezema on one side, hardline ethnic federalists on another, and Abiy Ahmed’s Oromo and Amhara ruling parties stuck in the middle.
He argued that elite bargains alone would not settle federal design, and that local contests might smother elitism if they were real.
Kept as politics analysis archive, the Lefort essay is a dated map of Ethiopia’s 2019 party spectrum under Abiy Ahmed.
Sources: Ethiopia Insight