Democracy Under Construction or Closed for Renovation?

By Sewasew Teklemariam, Ethiopian Tribune columnist

London, 11 November 2025. Conway Hall was heavy with anticipation as Mehdi Hasan prepared to interrogate Getachew Reda in Al Jazeera English’s flagship debate programme Head to Head. But before the cameras rolled, before the privileged guests took their seats, a smaller drama unfolded outside, one that would become a microcosm of Ethiopia’s democratic pretensions.

The queue stretched along Red Lion Square. Young Ethiopians, mostly students, clutched their tickets and waited. They had come to witness history, to hear Reda account for his transformation from Tigrayan resistance figure to Abiy Ahmed’s emissary. Amongst them were those who had lost family in the war, who had fled conscription, who carried the weight of a fractured nation in their memories. They were the diaspora’s conscience, its unsilenced voice.

Then came the announcement: “Conway Hall is full.”

Yet inside, the privileged flowed freely. Martin Plaut, the veteran journalist and Ethiopia observer, was ushered through. Special guests with Al Jazeera’s coveted access passes moved past security without hesitation. The handful of Ethiopians admitted were not representative of the queue outside, they were the selected few, the curated audience for a curated conversation.

Outside, anger simmered. “They close the door on us the same way they close the door on democracy,” said one student, his voice tight with frustration. “We are told there is no room, whilst the insiders decide what we are allowed to hear.” Another added: “Even here, in London, we are locked out. Is this not the story of Ethiopia itself?”

The symbolism was inescapable. A debate about Ethiopia’s democratic future, access restricted, voices excluded, the diaspora relegated to the margins. Democracy, it seemed, was not merely under construction in Ethiopia. It was under lockdown.

Inside Conway Hall, Reda sat across from Hasan with the composure of a seasoned politician. Yet the diaspora audience, those fortunate enough to gain entry, saw not composure but performance. They saw a man who had once denounced Abiy’s authoritarian drift, who had railed against centralisation, who had stood as Tigray’s voice during one of Africa’s deadliest wars. And they saw him now, seated as Abiy’s adviser, tasked with smoothing Ethiopia’s relations abroad whilst his own people remained scarred by trauma.

But a darker interpretation has been circulating amongst the diaspora, whispered in cafés from Addis to London, shared in encrypted messages across continents. Both Getachew and Abiy, many argue, are not merely opportunists or ideological turncoats. They are agents placed, positioned, and manoeuvred by invisible hands that have long played chess with Ethiopia’s sovereignty.

One public commentary, now circulating widely amongst diaspora networks, puts it bluntly: “Let us speak plainly. Abiy Ahmed did not rise to power through merit alone. He was groomed, elevated, and positioned by foreign interests who saw in him a malleable figure, a reformer’s face masking a centraliser’s ambition. His Nobel Peace Prize was not recognition; it was coronation. His war on Tigray was not miscalculation; it was orchestrated chaos, designed to fracture Ethiopia’s federal experiment and pave the way for a unitary state amenable to external control.”

The commentary continues with equal force: “And Getachew Reda? He is the next piece on the board. Once Abiy’s fiercest critic, now his closest adviser. The transformation is too convenient, too theatrical. Reda is being positioned not to serve Abiy but to replace him, or to topple him when the time is right. The invisible hands that placed Abiy in power have grown weary of his unpredictability, his erratic governance, his inability to deliver the stable, compliant Ethiopia they envisioned.”

“Reda, the pragmatist, the survivor, the man who speaks of reconciliation and engagement, is their insurance policy. He is being groomed as the alternative a figure acceptable to Tigray, palatable to the West, capable of holding together the fragments of a nation on the brink. Whether he topples Abiy through political manoeuvre or replaces him through engineered transition matters little. The outcome is the same: Ethiopia’s leadership remains in the hands of proxies, its sovereignty a fiction, its democracy a stage set for foreign interests.”

The analysis concludes: “We, the diaspora, are not naïve. We see the patterns. We remember how Meles Zenawi was anointed, how the EPRDF was sustained, how every Ethiopian leader since Haile Selassie has been entangled in the webs of global power. Abiy and Getachew are not rivals. They are collaborators in a script written elsewhere, actors in a play where the audience is locked outside Conway Hall, told there is no room, whilst the insiders applaud on cue. The question is not whether Getachew will replace Abiy. The question is when. And the deeper question is this: will we allow Ethiopia to remain a chessboard, its leaders pawns, its people spectators? Or will we finally demand that the game itself be overturned?”

Hasan pressed Reda on Abiy’s legacy. What had the Prime Minister achieved for Ethiopia? What obstacles remained to national unity? Reda’s answers were couched in diplomatic language careful, evasive. He spoke of pragmatism, of the complexities of Ethiopian politics, of the need to engage. But for the diaspora, the words rang hollow. They heard not pragmatism but betrayal. They heard not complexity but capitulation.

Abiy, once hailed as a reformer, is now seen as a centraliser, a man who dismantled the federal compact in pursuit of personal power. Reda, once his critic, is now his adviser. The betrayal is twofold. First, of comradeship: Reda’s shift from TPLF firebrand to Abiy’s envoy is viewed as abandonment. Second, of ideology: the leftist principles of equality, justice, and federalism have been traded for palace intrigue.

For the diaspora, the 2026 elections loom not as a beacon of democracy but as a theatre of disillusion. They ask whether the ballot boxes will be instruments of choice or instruments of control. They ask whether federalism is genuine or a façade for centralised power. They ask whether democracy in Ethiopia is under construction or closed for renovation. The satire writes itself. Ballot boxes as Pandora’s boxes, democracy as a construction site with no completion date, federalism as scaffolding that conceals rather than supports. Yet satire masks a deeper wound. For the diaspora, these are not literary devices. They are lived realities. They are the ghosts of comrades betrayed, principles abandoned, promises broken.

Outside Conway Hall, the excluded spoke with blunt clarity. “We do not trust them,” said one exile, still clutching his unused ticket. “Abiy betrayed the federal compact. Reda betrayed Tigray’s struggle. Neither can be trusted.” Another added: “They speak of elections, but elections without justice are theatre. We are spectators, not participants and tonight, not even that. We are locked out of our own story.”

A young woman, a graduate student who had fled Tigray during the war, spoke with controlled fury: “My family is still missing. My village was burnt. And Getachew sits in there, next to Mehdi Hasan, talking about ‘pragmatism’? What pragmatism allowed the starvation? What pragmatism silenced our screams? He is not there to account for us. He is there to explain himself to them to the foreigners, the funders, the architects of our suffering.”

The diaspora’s detachment is paradoxical. They are removed from the ballot boxes, yet deeply invested in the outcome. They are sceptical of promises, yet hungry for justice. They are alienated from politics, yet bound to its consequences. Their verdict is clear. Trust, once broken, is not easily repaired. And in their eyes, both Abiy and Reda are beyond redemption not merely as leaders, but as agents of forces that see Ethiopia not as a nation but as a strategic asset.

If Ethiopia’s politics were a novel, the chapter on democracy would be titled Under Construction or Closed for Renovation. But novels allow for redemption arcs. Politics does not. For the diaspora, democracy is not a literary metaphor. It is a broken promise, a construction site abandoned, a renovation that never began.

The evening at Conway Hall was more than an interview. It was a confrontation between rhetoric and reality, between promises and betrayals, between the diaspora’s scepticism and the politicians’ evasions. Mehdi Hasan’s forensic questioning exposed the fault lines. Reda’s careful answers revealed the contradictions. The diaspora’s blunt verdict both inside the hall and locked outside underscored the disillusion.

As the cameras rolled and the selected audience listened, the question hung in the air. Is Ethiopia’s democracy under construction, awaiting completion, or closed for renovation, abandoned by those who betrayed their comrades and principles? For the diaspora, the answer was clear. Democracy is not under construction. It is closed, shuttered by betrayal, abandoned by those who once promised justice and delivered only disillusion.

And yet, the diaspora remains. Detached from politics, sceptical of promises, wounded by betrayal, locked out of Conway Hall, they remain. Their voices, sharp and unforgiving, echo across London, across the diaspora, across the fractured landscape of Ethiopian politics. They remain as witnesses, as critics, as custodians of memory. They remain as the conscience of a nation that has lost its way.

The interview will air on 27 November. For the diaspora, it will not be entertainment. It will be indictment. It will be a reminder that democracy, once promised, has been betrayed. It will be a reminder that trust, once broken, is not easily repaired. It will be a reminder that both Abiy and Reda, men who lied, who betrayed their comrades, who abandoned their principles, who may well be pawns on a chessboard controlled by invisible hands, are beyond redemption.

If Ethiopia’s democracy were a headline, it would not read “Under Construction.” It would read “Closed for Renovation Indefinitely.” And for the diaspora, locked outside Conway Hall on a cold November evening, that headline is not satire. It is reality.