Explicating the Unconscionable Servility of Abiy’s Supporters

Messay Kebede
July 25, 2025

Despite the ongoing criminal wars in various places of the country, notably in the Amhara and Oromo regions, with the accompanying cocktail of flagrant human rights abuses, generalized state of terror, and a downward plunge into an abject national poverty, a surprising number of ordinary people, intellectuals, and politicians still come out in defense of Prime Minister Abiy’s government and his ruling Prosperity Party.  True, the level of support that they enjoy is nowhere near what it used to be six or five years ago. Such an abrupt and staggering decline in popularity raises the enigmatic question of how a regime with such disastrous records in all areas of social life still manages to retain supporters, however dwindling their number may be. 

Specifying the Problem

The most common answer to the question appeals to a mix of various reasons. It says that the reign of terror has induced such a generalized fear that most people feign support to protect themselves from governmental reprisals. Another added reason is the propaganda power of the government: the extended media empire it directly controls or finances constantly disseminates exaggerated and mostly misleading accounts of its alleged achievements. The third common reason is the toxic and pervasive ethnic divides in the country: they render Ethiopians powerless because they make them unable to undertake concerted actions against the government.

While it is true that the above reasons are indeed hindering most people from rising against the government, they do not tell the whole story. Nor do they fully explain the enigma of the passivity of Ethiopians vis-à-vis the gross abuses and destructive actions of the government. Agreed, history has taught us that sheer repression can expand the lifespan of dictatorial regimes even if conditions of life keep deteriorating. But how does it explain the enthusiastic defense of a dictatorial regime, as is the case in Ethiopia, by elite support groups, even as the conditions of the country are going from bad to worse? Not only do these Ethiopian elite groups persist in their support, but they also try to embellish the regime with all kinds of fabricated achievements and promises despite obvious signs that it is on its last legs. After all, mere survival instinct should alert them that advocating for such a regime is senseless and that it is in their best interest to either distance themselves from it or do something to remove it, like a coup d’état or conspiracy to trigger a popular rebellion.

Against the above objections, the prevailing belief holds that members from the middle and upper classes, including military and security junior and senior officers, side with the regime because they greatly benefit from it. In other words, material interests far outweigh whatever reservations they have towards the government. The belief adds that the support extends beyond ethnic cleavages, since Amhara civilian and military elites are among the supporters despite the anti-Amhara war raging in their region.

While we can say that ordinary and poor people can be tricked into endorsing the regime, the argument does not hold water when it comes to civilian and military elite groups. The supposition that they are not fully aware of the ruinous outcomes of Abiy’s government is not a defensible argument, nor is the assumption that they somehow fail to realize that the regime is a threat to their long-term interests. Even more grave is the case of those elite groups who are known previously for their protracted fight to uphold democratic rights and ethnic equality and who now take the side of the government. How does one make sense of such a betrayal of the principle for which they fought long and hard? Their case is all the more puzzling because many of these individuals already live a comfortable life and do not need handouts from the government.

Deflection and Scapegoating

The million-dollar question is thus: why do these elite groups continue to support the regime, while knowing that the direction of its policy is detrimental to the interests of the country and their own? I know how hard it is to admit that these elite groups continue to support the regime even though they are aware of the danger it represents to their interests. My explanation reiterates what I said a moment ago, namely, that elite groups cannot be so blinded by their interests as to ignore the graveness of the danger threatening the government.

The truth is that the elites know but convince themselves that blaming Abiy for the appalling state of the country, including for the flagrant violations of human rights, is a wrongheaded verdict. Not that they believe that somebody else crippled the country and committed the violations, but because, in their eyes, Abiy is not the real culprit. For them, he had no other choice than to think and act in the way he did. In other words, the fault lies with somebody else: Abiy was and is just reacting to counter the ill intentions of all those groups, whether armed or not, which are determined to undermine his projects for a prosperous Ethiopia and to do so by using all means.

In psychological studies, this tendency to blame others for one’s problems, mistakes, and mishaps is referred to as deflection. Shifting responsibility for wrongdoings to other people is primarily a defensive mechanism. A case in point is ethnic animosity: demonizing one or several ethnic groups and diverting the blame for all the wicked things happening to a country to them is inherent in ethnic ideology. Similarly, the Leninist type of socialist ideology, which blamed the wealthy class for a country’s poverty, was another form of ideological deflection. Here appears the other function of deflection, which is to shut off, more exactly, to divert critical thinking. When you transfer the blame for wrongdoings to other people, the subject of your criticism moves from real culprits to scapegoats.

Abiy constantly uses deflection to divert his government’s problems and failures to other groups or even the people at large. He regularly complains that the Ethiopian people do not understand him, that they do not realize the long-term benefits of his policy. From his perspective, his intentions are good for the country, but extremist opposing groups and ill-intended elites spoil his projects to foment rebellions against him.

Abiy’s advocates use the same mechanism to convince themselves that they are serving a good cause. According to them, Abiy’s detractors miss a basic point, which is that he represents the only path standing up to ethnonationalist and extremist forces. To overlook this basic fact is to put the country on the dangerous road of civil war or a takeover by an extremist ethnic group. Both cases sound the knell of Ethiopian unity. The other point neglected by critics is that extremist groups, besides being responsible for most of the grave problems facing the country, are also those who sabotage Abiy’s government effort to solve them.

In thus clearing Abiy by pinning the mess in which the country is on other groups of people, defenders believe that they support the only viable and salvational alternative. They also convince themselves that it is their moral duty to uphold and work for Abiy so that he prevails over evil. In so doing, apologists, in addition to exonerating Abiy, turn him into a victim of the evil deeds of his opponents, still better into a hero. Notably, they use this mechanism of deflecting criticism every time Abiy comes under attack for saying or doing the wrong thing.

The Awe of Power

Now, why do supporters need this recourse to deflection? As is often the case with twisted states of mind, it must be to resolve or appease some inner contradiction. Let me take an example. We frequently hear mothers trying to excuse a son’s bad behavior by blaming his friends, some circumstances, or even bad luck. The inner conflict is clear in this case: since the love for her son cannot swallow the bad behavior, the mother diverts the blame from him to somebody else or something else. In this way, she appeases the trauma that an admission of the son’s wrongful conduct would have caused. A similar case is the wife who blames other women for her husband’s infidelity. The love for her husband would be tarnished if the wife did not find a way to excuse the infidelity. What transpires in both cases is that deflection is a mechanism to cope with a traumatic situation. It aims at restoring the unity of the person by reconciling its opposing sides.

An objection comes to mind: granted that the recourse to deflection makes sense where love is involved, political relations, which obviously do not belong to the affective realm, do not lend themselves to such an explanation. But let us look closer. To begin with, as admitted already, I concur with analysts who maintain that people support Abiy’s government because of the benefits that come along, especially in the form of material benefits. However, I add that, besides material interests, some extra or supra-incentive is always involved. No individual will admit that he/she defends the regime only for material benefits. Individuals always manage to justify their claim that sheer greed alone did not motivate their support. On the other hand, there is the case of those individuals who uphold the regime because of their ideological affinity with it, however misguided the affinity may be. That is why it makes sense to inquire whether political relations can foster some trauma that needs to be tackled.

In addition to being about government and its institutions, the clash of different groups over the ideal social organization, and the carrying out of multiple activities involving decision-making, politics establishes power relations between individuals that require obedience to a form of authority that can even use violence to enforce its decisions. People aspire to partake, at whatever level, in this ability to influence and control other people, and, if necessary, compel them to obey. The institution of hierarchical relationships between those in positions of authority and those who obey possesses its inner seductiveness. This awe of power attracts most individuals and positions them in competitive relations. In vain are people told that all individuals are equal before the law; their competitiveness for power subdues their concern for equality.

This magnetism of power is stronger the more the country concerned goes through a skewed pattern of modernization, as is the case with Ethiopia. In such a country, the royal avenue to economic wealth remains politics, either by being part of the ruling elite or through connections with those in power. The reason is obvious: in a “developing” country, the private sector, even if it is officially autonomous, does not escape the control of state power; nor can it challenge its allegiance to the state without harming its interests. It follows that the main criterion for promoting one’s interests is not merit but loyalty to those in power.

The awe of power reveals the affective element. Indeed, when a person is promoted to a position of power, the glory of power gives him/her the feeling of being elevated. In return, the promoted person shows sentiments of gratitude, admiration, and deference towards the sponsor, regardless of his/her real merits. The sense of being elevated gives a boost to one’s ego, thereby making the person feel good about himself/herself. Since misgivings about the sponsor do no more than dilute the boost, most supporters shut down critical thinking to protect their uplifted ego.

The suppression of critical thinking exposes the conflict between the uplifted ego, thanks to the aura of power, and the principled or ethical ego. One way to resolve the inner conflict is to stifle the ethical ego by using deflection. The silencing of the ethical ego dragged supporters into all the depravities of their sponsors: it is the price they pay to sustain the uplifting feeling. The excitement associated with power is too strong a lure for them to resist it. In short, the addictive force of power is as formidable as that of narcotics. In fact, apologists double down on their rhetoric to bury their inner conflict further, given that admitting it would be too painful for them, not to mention its costs in terms of interests.

As to the question of remedy, my answer is: the sooner the advocates acknowledge the antagonistic forces of their inner trauma, the closer they move to a therapeutic path. Full awareness of their inner conflict gives them a better chance to resist their keenness to support and to achieve some control over it. In doing so, supporters free their critical thinking through a better understanding of their internal disturbance. Such an understanding reveals to them that they are victims of the allure of power. This sense of being victims could, in turn, convince them that sacrificing their ethical self is not devoid of adverse consequences and that their justification by deflection is just a bogus and blinding rationalization.

This does not mean that the therapy would be successful: it is my conviction that most supporters will remain faithful to Abiy to the end because they fear his revenge and have a lot to lose, but also because admitting their wrongheaded alignment with him is too painful for them.  Still, the therapeutic path is worth taking because it could save some souls.