A state shrinking around its centre

The state shrinking around its centre

At the end of June 2026, the Ethiopian federal government has completed its formal electoral consolidation, holds nominal sovereignty over 128 million citizens, and controls a substantially smaller portion of Ethiopian territory in operationally-effective terms than it did in April 2018. The strategic partnerships of the transition period have inverted. The Pretoria Agreement’s institutional framework has been formally displaced. The macroeconomic stabilisation has been achieved at the cost of substantial real-wage losses to the federal-government’s own political base. Four regional armed conflicts operate simultaneously. The regional security architecture has broken down. This is what the federal-government’s post-2018 strategic pattern has produced. What follows is not yet visible.

Filed late June 2026 — the closing dispatch of this chronicle

Any serious analytical characterisation of the Ethiopian federal-government’s operational condition at the end of June 2026 must proceed from a set of empirical observations that the federal-government’s own public communications have not addressed. The chronicle has, across the preceding 28 dispatches, documented these observations across their principal dimensions. What remains, at the closing point of the chronicle, is the analytical synthesis of what the observations, taken together, indicate about the operational condition of the state.

The synthesis produces a characterisation that the federal-government’s post-2018 strategic pattern has substantially reduced the operational governance capacity of the Ethiopian state while simultaneously expanding the federal-government’s formal political authority over that state. The disparity between formal authority and operational capacity is the structural condition of Ethiopian federal-government politics at the end of June 2026. The disparity has been progressively widening through the post-2018 period. The disparity’s forward political consequences are, at the point of this closing dispatch, undetermined but no longer avoidable through the strategic-choice pattern that has produced them.

Territorial control.

The federal Ethiopian government’s operational control of Ethiopian territory at the end of June 2026 is, on the honest empirical assessment, substantially reduced from the 2018 baseline.

Tigray Region operates with two rival governments (Dispatch 27); the reconstituted pre-war Regional Council under Debretsion’s presidency claims regional authority and operates from Mekelle with substantive support from Debretsion-aligned TDF formations and from Eritrean intelligence coordination; the federal-backed Interim Administration under Tadesse Werede claims the same authority and operates from the same city with substantive federal-ENDF backing. The specific operational reality across Tigray’s zones varies by locality; some districts operate substantially under Regional Council authority; others operate substantially under Interim Administration authority; others operate in contested conditions where neither government’s writ is effectively exercised. Federal-government administrative reach across Tigray is, in aggregate, substantially below the 2018 baseline; substantially below the December 2022 post-Pretoria baseline; and substantively below any reasonable threshold for effective sovereign control.

Amhara Region operates under conditions of sustained armed insurgency (Dispatch 21). The federal government maintains nominal control of the major urban centres — Bahir Dar, Gondar, Dessie, Debre Berhan — but loses tactical control of these cities to brief Fano operations on a recurring basis (the 11 February 2026 Debre Tabor entry being the most recent documented case at the point of this filing). Most of rural Amhara operates under Fano administrative influence rather than federal-government control. Federal-government tax collection, judicial administration, and service delivery in rural Amhara have substantially degraded through 2024, 2025, and into 2026. The federal government’s aggregate territorial control of Amhara Region is, in operational terms, substantially below the 2018 baseline.

Oromia Region operates under conditions of continuing OLA insurgency (Dispatch 22) though at reduced operational tempo compared to 2022–2023. The federal-aligned Oromia regional government under Shimelis Abdisa operates as the federal-government’s administrative partner across most of the region; the OLA insurgency operates in specific zones (western Wollega, southern Borena and Guji) where federal-government control is contested. The federal-government’s aggregate territorial control of Oromia Region is, on the operational assessment, moderately reduced from the 2018 baseline but substantially operational across most of the region.

Somali Region operates in a condition that has, throughout the post-2018 period, been characterised by substantial federal-government administrative limitations. The Somali regional government’s alignment with the federal government has been operationally durable but the federal-government’s substantive control over the region’s interior has been continually constrained. The status of the region has not, during the post-2018 period, produced the level of open armed conflict that has characterised Tigray, Amhara, or Oromia; the underlying federal-government operational capacity has been comparably limited across all four regions.

Benishangul-Gumuz Region operates in a condition of substantial federal-government administrative attenuation. The region hosts, per the February 2026 Reuters investigation, an Ethiopian-constructed RSF training camp (Dispatch 25); the region’s border with Sudan has been operationally militarised by both the ENDF and by the various armed formations operating in the region; the federal-government’s substantive control over rural Benishangul is, at the point of this filing, limited.

Afar Region has been substantially affected by the Tigray-Eritrea security dynamics of the post-2024 period. The region’s border with Eritrea has been militarised; the region’s border with Tigray has been contested by both TDF operations and by federal-ENDF deployments; the region’s operational condition is one of accumulated militarisation without substantive resolution of the underlying political-strategic pressures.

The Sidama Region, Southern Ethiopia Region, and Central Ethiopia Region (three of the recent regional restructurings of the former SNNPR) operate under substantially federal-government aligned administrative structures. The federal-government’s control over these regions has been substantively continuous through the post-2018 period. Local armed activity in specific woredas (particularly in Wolayta and Guji Oromia zones adjacent to the OLA operational zones) has produced localised operational limitations; the aggregate condition of these regions has remained substantially under federal-government administration.

Addis Ababa city, the federal capital, has been operationally consolidated as the federal-government’s administrative centre through the demolition and reconstruction programmes documented in Dispatch 19. The city’s population has been progressively displaced from the central historic quarters through the Corridor Development Project’s operations; the Chaka Palace complex has been substantially completed on the eastern Yeka Hills; the city’s physical character has been substantially transformed through the federal-government’s construction ambitions.

The aggregate territorial pattern, on this empirical assessment, is that the federal government has been progressively consolidating administrative and political control at the centre — Addis Ababa city, the immediate federal-aligned regional structures, the operational capital that the Chaka Palace complex physically represents — while the operational governance capacity across the country’s peripheral regions has been progressively degraded. The state has been shrinking around its centre.

Strategic partnerships.

The federal-government’s international strategic position at the end of June 2026 has been substantially transformed from the November 2022 post-Pretoria baseline.

The Ethiopia-UAE bilateral partnership has been operationally the federal-government’s most substantive external relationship. UAE investment in Ethiopian infrastructure, financing of federal-government projects (including the Chaka Palace), provision of military equipment (particularly drones), and diplomatic support for federal-government positions on regional questions have been substantial across the post-2018 period. The partnership has been the federal-government’s principal external strategic asset.

The Ethiopia-Eritrea partnership, which had been operationally active from July 2018 through the November 2022 post-Pretoria period, has been comprehensively voided (Dispatch 25). Eritrea now operates in what International Crisis Group has characterised as an “operational posture of mutual hostility” with the Ethiopian federal government. The two states’ military mobilisations along their shared border, the Eritrean support for Debretsion-TPLF, and the Ethiopian formal accusations of Eritrean preparation for war constitute a strategic reversal that has few historical precedents in the post-2000 African regional order.

The Ethiopia-Sudan relationship has degraded from the ambiguous cordiality of the 2018–2023 period into the substantive hostility of the 2024–2026 period. The Sudanese Armed Forces’ backing of anti-Abiy Ethiopian opposition (TDF, Fano, OLA elements) and the Ethiopian federal government’s substantive support for the RSF against the SAF have produced a state-level rivalry that operates through proxy engagements across the shared border and through diplomatic contestation in multiple international forums.

The Ethiopia-Somalia relationship, degraded by the January 2024 Somaliland MoU crisis (Dispatch 18), has been substantively restored through the December 2024 Ankara Declaration but has not returned to the pre-crisis alignment. The Ethiopia-Djibouti relationship, which continues to constitute the operational basis for Ethiopia’s commercial sea access, has been substantially transactional and has been affected by the broader regional-strategic pressures.

The Ethiopia-Egypt relationship has been characterised by continued hostility around the Nile dam and by Egypt’s substantive alignment with the anti-Ethiopia regional axis. The Ethiopia-Saudi Arabia relationship has been progressively degraded through the Gulf-state polarisation of late 2025. The Ethiopia-Kenya, Ethiopia-Uganda, and other African-state relationships have been substantially operational but without the diplomatic weight required to counterbalance the accumulating regional pressures.

The Ethiopia-United States relationship, degraded by the Tigray war and by subsequent developments, has been substantively restored through the IMF programme’s operation but has not been re-established at the depth of the pre-2020 period. The Ethiopia-European Union relationship has been comparably operational without being substantive. The Ethiopia-China relationship has been substantially transactional throughout the post-2018 period, focused on infrastructure financing and commercial engagement rather than on political-strategic partnership.

The aggregate pattern of the federal-government’s international strategic position, on this empirical assessment, is one of substantially reduced strategic capacity relative to the 2018 baseline. The Ethiopia-UAE partnership constitutes the federal-government’s principal remaining substantive external asset; the state’s regional strategic position has been progressively degraded through the choices documented across this chronicle; the state’s global strategic position has been characterised by continued formal engagement without substantive strategic depth.

Economic conditions.

The Ethiopian macroeconomic condition at the end of June 2026 is substantially different from the April 2018 baseline in multiple dimensions.

The birr has depreciated approximately 490% against the dollar over Abiy’s premiership (from approximately 27 in April 2018 to approximately 177 in April 2026). Inflation, which peaked at 33.8% in late 2022, is at approximately 11.7% (April 2026) and remains elevated by historical norms. Real wages for federal-government employees have declined an estimated 25–40% over the post-2020 period. Foreign-exchange reserves have recovered from the pre-float crisis to approximately three months of import cover. The debt restructuring has produced modified obligations that operate within manageable service parameters (Dispatch 20).

The macroeconomic stabilisation is, on the technical metrics that IMF programmes use, substantially successful. The distributional consequences — the real-wage declines borne by the federal-government’s own wage-earning constituencies, the accumulated costs to urban import-dependent consumers, the sustained hardship in the Amhara and Tigray conflict zones — constitute the substantive political-economic reality that the federal-government’s public communications have not comprehensively addressed.

Institutional and political space.

The Ethiopian institutional and political space at the end of June 2026 has been substantially constrained relative to the 2018 baseline.

The judiciary operates with limited independence from the federal executive. Contested political questions — including the substantive legality of the May 2025 TPLF deregistration, the constitutional status of the Chaka Palace construction, the substantive legality of the Bole and Lemi Kura evictions — have not been meaningfully adjudicated by federal courts. The specific formal institutional structures of judicial independence continue to exist; the operational reality of independent judicial adjudication of federal-government conduct has been progressively degraded through the post-2018 period.

The political-party space has been substantially narrowed. The TPLF has been deregistered (Dispatch 24). The National Movement of Amhara operates under substantial constraints on its political activity. The Oromo Federalist Congress and the Oromo Liberation Front’s political wing have operated under progressive constraints. EZEMA has continued to operate but with reduced political weight compared to its 2020–2021 profile. The Prosperity Party dominates the electoral and legislative space with the 438-seat consolidation of the June 2026 election (Dispatch 28).

The civil society space has been substantially constrained. The November 2024 suspensions of CARD, AHRE, and EHRDC (Dispatch 19) demonstrated the federal-government’s willingness to use administrative-regulatory instruments against critical civil-society organisations. The suspensions were partially reversed under international diplomatic pressure but the structural condition of civil-society operation in Ethiopia has been substantively degraded.

The media space has been substantially constrained. Independent journalism has operated under conditions of periodic arbitrary detention, restricted access to conflict zones, and administrative-security pressure. The October 2023 non-renewal of the ICHREE mandate (Dispatch 17) removed the principal international mechanism for documentation of federal-government conduct in the conflicts.

The aggregate pattern of Ethiopian institutional space, on this empirical assessment, is one of substantially constrained operational space for the political and civil-society activity that could produce alternative political-strategic pressures on the federal government’s choice-making. The narrowing has been progressive and cumulative across the post-2018 period.

Human costs.

The human costs of the post-2018 period, on the aggregate empirical assessment, are substantial and continuing.

The Tigray war of November 2020 – November 2022 produced deaths in the range that international estimates have placed between approximately 300,000 and 600,000, with the upper end reflecting cumulative direct-conflict deaths, siege-related mortality, and post-conflict conditions attributable to the war. Sexual violence against Tigrayan women during the war was documented by ICHREE at approximately 10,000 cases and characterised by the Commission as a substantial undercount (Dispatch 17). The Mai Kadra killings of 9 November 2020, the Axum massacre of 28-29 November 2020, and the numerous other documented atrocity incidents constituted specific components of the aggregate wartime human cost.

The Amhara conflict of April 2023 – ongoing has produced accumulated civilian casualties across the drone campaigns, ground operations, and reciprocal violence between Fano formations and federal-aligned forces. The specific casualty figures have been substantially less comprehensively documented than the Tigray war casualties (in significant part due to the ICHREE non-renewal). Individual documented incidents — the Merawi killings of January 2024, the East Gojjam school strike of April 2025, the North Gojjam drone strike of October 2024 killing 50+ — provide indicative rather than aggregate documentation. The cumulative Amhara civilian casualty figure over the 2023–2026 period is, on responsible estimates, in the tens of thousands.

The OLA insurgency in Oromia has produced continuing civilian casualties across the region’s zones of active conflict. Aggregate figures for the post-2018 Oromia conflict, including the pre-war years, have been estimated by various sources at approximately 20,000-30,000 casualties across all parties and civilian populations, with substantial uncertainty in the estimates.

The Sudanese-refugee flow into Ethiopia through Metemma and other border crossings, and the Ethiopian-refugee flow into Sudan and other regional destinations, constitute additional dimensions of the human cost that have not been comprehensively documented.

The Corridor Development Project’s forced evictions across 58+ cities have produced accumulated displacement of Ethiopian urban populations in the tens of thousands (Dispatch 19).

The aggregate human cost of the post-2018 period is, on responsible empirical assessment, one of the most substantial such costs in African regional history since the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The specific numeric characterisation is subject to substantial uncertainty; the substantive magnitude is not.

Regional strategic position.

The federal-government’s regional strategic position at the end of June 2026 has been substantially degraded from the 2018 or 2022 baselines. The Ethiopia-UAE-focused strategic posture operates against a regional coalition of Egypt, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, and the Sudanese Armed Forces that constitutes the most substantial regional counterweight to Ethiopian ambitions since the pre-1998 Eritrean independence period. The forward risk of direct regional conflict, on the operational assessments of International Crisis Group, Chatham House, the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project, and other analytical bodies, is substantial (Dispatches 25 and 26).

The state shrinking around its centre.

The aggregate empirical pattern that the preceding sections have documented constitutes the substantive characterisation of the Ethiopian state at the end of June 2026. The federal government has been progressively consolidating administrative and political control at the centre — the federal capital, the immediate federal-aligned regional structures, the Prosperity Party’s dominant electoral position, the constrained political space that the federal government has been progressively narrowing. The country’s peripheral regions have been progressively operating outside effective federal-government control. The strategic partnerships that had supported the federal-government’s regional position have been substantially voided or reversed. The economic base has been stabilised at substantial welfare cost to the federal-government’s own political base. The human cost has been accumulated across multiple regional conflicts. The regional strategic position has been comprehensively degraded.

The state is shrinking around its centre. The centre — Addis Ababa city, the Chaka Palace complex, the Prosperity Party’s political-institutional apparatus — has been operationally consolidated. The periphery — Tigray, Amhara, Oromia’s western and southern zones, Benishangul-Gumuz, Afar, and the broader country — has been progressively operating outside the centre’s effective control.

The pattern that this chronicle has documented across its 28 preceding dispatches is not a series of discrete incidents. It is a coherent political-strategic pattern in which specific choices at specific decision points have accumulated the operational costs that this closing dispatch characterises. The federal government’s leadership has, at multiple decision points across the post-2018 period, chosen the more confrontational or the more unilateral option over the more accommodating or the more consultative one. The cumulative choice-record has produced the operational configuration.

Whether the pattern will be modified in the post-June 2026 period is the substantive forward question of Ethiopian federal-government politics. The evidence of the preceding eight years suggests that the pattern will not be substantially modified. The evidence also suggests that the operational costs of the pattern’s continuation will, at some point, exceed the political-institutional capacity to bear them.

What is not yet visible.

What follows the June 2026 electoral consolidation is not yet visible. Multiple potential trajectories remain operationally possible.

Direct Ethiopia-Eritrea military conflict is one possibility. The accumulated conditions have been substantially assembled. The specific ignition remains unidentified. Ethiopian federal forces have been redeployed toward the northern border in numbers that suggest operational preparation for such conflict. Eritrean forces have been mobilised in comparable numbers. The rhetorical positioning has approached the levels of the pre-1998 period. The specific timing of any actual ignition cannot be reliably predicted; the operational assessment converges on characterising such conflict as more probable than not over the twelve-month horizon following this filing.

Renewed Tigray-federal military conflict is another possibility. The institutional dispute between the reconstituted Regional Council under Debretsion and the Interim Administration under Tadesse has not, at the point of this filing, produced direct military engagement between the two administrations’ aligned formations. The operational preconditions for such engagement have been comprehensively assembled. Whether the two administrations’ formations will engage militarily depends on specific developments that the parties will make in the subsequent operational period.

Continued low-intensity conflict across the accumulated theatres, without direct state-to-state or interregional escalation, is another possibility. The Amhara insurgency continues at substantial operational tempo. The OLA insurgency continues at reduced operational tempo. The Tigray institutional dispute continues at contained operational tempo. The Ethiopia-Eritrea military tensions continue without direct engagement. The federal government’s operational capacity across all theatres continues to be constrained by the accumulated pressures. This trajectory — continued accumulation without dramatic ignition — is also operationally plausible.

Substantial de-escalation through comprehensive strategic accommodations is a fourth possibility. The federal government could, in principle, pursue substantive Pretoria implementation, formal renunciation of Assab ambitions, withdrawal of RSF support in Sudan, and comprehensive engagement with the internal armed oppositions. The operational conditions for such accommodations remain formally available. The federal-government’s demonstrated pattern of not pursuing such accommodations suggests that this trajectory is operationally improbable but not formally excluded.

Some form of federal-government internal political transformation — through Prosperity Party internal contestation, through parliamentary re-selection dynamics, through external economic pressure, or through other mechanisms — is a fifth possibility. The Prosperity Party’s internal political dynamics have not been comprehensively transparent; substantive contestation within the party has not been publicly visible during the electoral period; the possibility of such contestation emerging in the post-electoral period cannot be reliably assessed.

The specific character of the forward trajectory will be determined by decisions and events that have not, at the point of this filing, occurred. The chronicle’s operational reach ends at the point of the June 2026 election’s consolidation of formal political authority. What that consolidation will produce, in the operational strategic environment the chronicle has documented, is the substantive open question of Ethiopian politics.

Closing.

The chronicle has attempted, across its 29 dispatches, to document the operational choices of the Ethiopian federal government under Abiy Ahmed’s leadership from April 2018 to June 2026. The documentation has been comprehensive on the specific incidents it has covered; the analytical characterisation has been consistent with the empirical evidence; the substantive judgment has been that the federal-government’s strategic-choice pattern has produced accumulating operational costs that the pattern has not been oriented toward addressing.

The retrospective political-historical judgment on the post-2018 Ethiopian federal-government project remains, at the point of this filing, uncompleted. The specific character of the forward crisis, when it expresses itself, will substantially determine that judgment. The chronicle has attempted to provide the empirical and analytical foundation on which such judgment can eventually be made.

The state that Abiy Ahmed inherited in April 2018 was a substantially stable federal structure operating under conditions of accumulated political-legitimacy pressures. The state that the June 2026 election has consolidated is a substantially degraded federal structure operating under conditions of accumulated operational-capacity limitations. The transformation between the two states is the substantive record of the post-2018 period.

The state has been shrinking around its centre. The centre has been progressively consolidated. The periphery has been progressively lost to conditions the centre could not, or would not, effectively address.

What follows will, at some point in the operational future, express the accumulated costs of this configuration. The chronicle has documented the accumulation; the expression itself remains, at the point of this filing, unrealised.

Ethiopia in late June 2026. A federal government with formal authority. A state with degraded governance capacity. Four regional armed conflicts. A regional-security architecture in comprehensive breakdown. A macroeconomic stabilisation borne by the wage-earning classes. A political space substantially narrowed. A civil society constrained. A judiciary limited. A press restricted. A capital city physically transformed and increasingly separated from the country it nominally governs. A palace complex on the Yeka Hills at $10–15 billion. A federal annual budget of $14.6 billion. An arithmetic that does not work. A political logic that has not been modified.

What follows is not yet visible. What has been produced is comprehensively documented.

The chronicle ends here.

The subsequent events — whatever their specific character, whenever they occur — will be documented by whatever mechanisms remain available to Ethiopian journalism, international analysis, and honest political-historical accounting in the period ahead.

This chronicle has been an attempt to provide such an accounting for the eight years between April 2018 and June 2026. The judgment on what those eight years represent, in the longer sweep of Ethiopian political history, remains open. The empirical record is what has been offered. The substantive judgment awaits the events that have not yet occurred.

The state shrinking around its centre. The election that consolidated what could not be governed. The pattern that produced the accumulation. The accumulation that awaits its expression.

Ethiopia. Late June 2026. The chronicle closes.

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Sources for Article 29

This closing dispatch synthesises the documentary evidence collected across the preceding 28 dispatches of this chronicle. The specific sources for the operational events referenced in this dispatch are documented in the sources sections of the relevant preceding dispatches. Additional sources drawn upon for the synthetic characterisation include:

1. International Crisis Group, “Ethiopia, Eritrea and Tigray: A Powder Keg in the Horn of Africa,” 18 February 2026 — https://www.crisisgroup.org/brf/africa/ethiopia-eritrea/b210-ethiopia-eritrea-and-tigray-powder-keg-horn-africa
2. International Crisis Group Q&A, “Power Struggle in Ethiopia’s Tigray: Averting a Return to War,” May 2026 — https://www.crisisgroup.org/qna/africa/ethiopia-eritrea/power-struggle-ethiopias-tigray-averting-return-war
3. Critical Threats Project (AEI), “Ethiopia Prepares For War: Africa File Special Edition,” February 2026 — https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/ethiopia-tigray-war-tplf-eritrea-sudan-red-sea-africa-file
4. Amnesty International, “Ethiopia: Federal government must pause the corridor development project and end forced evictions,” 14 April 2025
5. OHCHR / Human Rights Council A/HRC/54/55 (ICHREE final report), 14 September 2023
6. Wikipedia, “2026 Ethiopian general election,” accessed June 2026
7. Wikipedia, “Premiership of Abiy Ahmed,” accessed June 2026
8. Reuters, “Ethiopia builds secret camp to train Sudan RSF fighters, sources say,” 10 February 2026
9. Chatham House, “Tensions in Tigray could spark war between Ethiopia and Eritrea,” March 2025
10. Freedom House Ethiopia Report, 2025 and 2026
11. Human Rights Watch, “World Report 2024 - Ethiopia” and subsequent updates
12. IMF Country Report on Ethiopia, Article IV Consultation, 2024–2025
13. World Bank Ethiopia Country Engagement Framework, 2024–2027
14. ACLED conflict data on Ethiopia, 2020–2026
15. Various Ethiopian-focused analyses by Ethiopia Insight, Addis Standard, The Reporter Ethiopia, Borkena, and other Ethiopian outlets across the 2018–2026 period
16. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, “Reshaping the Horn of Africa,” April 2025
17. Africa Center for Strategic Studies, “Rising Tensions in Tigray Risk Regional Conflict,” 21 August 2025
18. Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, “The Pretoria Agreement for Tigray: One Year After,” 1 November 2023
19. Wilson Center analyses of Ethiopian federalism and regional dynamics
20. The Africa Report coverage of Ethiopian politics, 2018–2026
21. Africa Is a Country / GPPi, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” 4 August 2025
22. The New Humanitarian coverage of Ethiopian conflicts, 2018–2026

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End of Dispatch 29 — the closing dispatch of this chronicle. One article, approximately 3,150 words.

End of the expanded chronicle: 29 dispatches, 32 full articles, approximately 110,000 words, covering the political-economic history of Ethiopia under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed from April 2018 through late June 2026.