Ethiopia's Abiy, A Nobel Winner Tarnished By The Violence In Tigray, Is Facing Voters
Even though Abiy is widely expected to be returned to power, he is seen at home and abroad as having squandered an opportunity at lasting regional peace by taking a heavy-handed approach against an insurrection in Tigray.
But more broadly, the conflict in Tigray and the atrocities committed there threaten to tear apart Ethiopia, said Alex DeWaal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a research professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
"Ethiopians are going to the polls under a cloud of doubt as to whether their country can even exist as a single entity in the near future," he wrote in an email to NPR. "In just the last few days, the Tigrayan resistance forces have inflicted heavy defeats on the Ethiopian army, exposing as false [Abiy's] claim to be within sight of a military victory."