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By Eyob Asfaw *
For a long time, I used to blog about the Ethiopian affair, lamenting the perpetual violence in Ethiopia and low expectations for the Ethiopian Dialogue. As a continuation of a series of my commentaries, two years ago I feared that the city bus in Addis Ababa, plastered with a sticker banner showcasing in Amharic, ‘Let us save the country (Ethiopia) through dialogue!’ would fall on blind eyes, as Ethiopians are dangerously lacking an appetite for politics.
To my surprise, the fact that how the proceedings of the month-long national dialogue , which concluded by 21 August, have left me in awe and compelled me with a strong urge to pen down what I have been feeling and thinking. Especially, the dialogue unfolded the sheer scale of participants, congregating 4,000 delegates from 1,234 districts (woredas) out of approximately 1,330 deliberating on eight key agenda. The Agendas included, but were not limited to: i)government structure and form, ii) political representation and election system, iii)federal cities such as Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa, iv) religious affairs, v) peace and security, vi) economic issues, and vii) matters related to justice and reconciliation.
When I return to reflecting on the dialogue, I realize that writing about such an unpredictable process and outcome of national dialogue is far from easy. A year ago I was deeply skeptical and cynical about which my cynicism was publicly recorded over this page-Addis Insight. By then, several other articles had also questioned the credibility of the process and argued that it had seriously failed to secure the legitimacy it deserved see (Felek, 2024) Liyew, 2025) . In the remaining section of this piece, I want to ask what happened to the hypothesis that shaped the earlier forecasts? Did the anticipated fate of National Dialogue materialize, it perhaps even forgotten-by the actual course of events?
My surprise become stronger when I seeing the same diaspora figures and politicians elsewhere who discredited the dialogue as ‘dead on arrival !’ stressing doom from start- recently sharing views on the agenda of Addis Ababa ( i.e. constitutional recognition to host the seat of Oromia National Government) in a manner of demonstrating their rectification of valuing the dialogue. Seeing the dialogue to grab the attention elsewhere to this extent is indeed a championship for the dialogue for someone who fears the conflict in Amhara and tension in Tigray and instability in Oromia would keep overshadow what has taken place in the dialogue. We really feared the national dialogue would accomplish and soon be dissolved with. Was this heated dialogue being not long overdue.
After all those years- long overdue- observing the participant disagreement over the Addis Ababa I want to ask what was there that was either unnatural or uncivil in the political discourse. Let us highlight a few disagreements on the process or recommendation of some key agenda. Primarily, reports that some participants threatened to walk out were also natural and can be identified the nature of civil dialogue, unless disagreements turn out to physical or verbal assault. Secondly, during and after the national dialogue, oppositions including-NAMA, EZEMA, released a communique as they question the dialogues is not free from flaws on a few agendas, including the agenda on Addis Ababa. The hiatus disagreement over the matter is indeed something that brought the mountainous-based battle into a convention center verbal game. Though initially people were highly uncertain and lacked popular support(Liyew, 2025), by any measure, as the dialogue unfolds at a later stage, polarized ideas that can coexist in the democratic discourse.
One thing that deserved further attention is that the national dialogue is not a talk exercise where delegates merely vent their opinion. Its significance extends well beyond the dialogue itself. The final communique and its recommendation are highly likely to influence voters’ attitudes and eventually be put to a referendum. As EZEMA (one of the leading oppositions) remarked in its conclusion of the event; the party called for the establishment of an independent legal body to monitor implementation of the recommendations. Ethiopia’s own political history privides ample evidence of how elite consensus or disagreement can influence popular attitudes, a pattern also attested by an Afrobarometer study ( Mattes & Teka 2026) that how the Ethiopian mass is influenced by its elites. In this piece, I am not saying the government’s influence over the national dialogue as inherently indefensible; rather the extent and nature of such influence can be critically questioned. Be that as it may, everything what we found awesome will never let us deny the praise that it deserves.
What the world and our Ethiopian brothers and sisters alike can learn from the process the concluded national dialogue. History is full of surprises that initial hypotheses can’t be accountable and may be far away from what it forecasted. (Jervis, 2009)History shows as barely it is highly probable to be driven by events that are barely anticipated. Be that as it may, among the unforeseen surprises is that, EZEMA called for the careful implementation of the dialogue recommendation. This indirectly indicated that not all dialogue shall end with agreement or disagreement. Some of the dialogue shall be assumed to continue further and open for another Pandora’s box of unanticipated agendas for continuing dialogue.
In a nutshell, if someone has a closer look at the actual process and outcomes of the national dialogue that it has overshadowed the initially hypothesized fate, making the prospect of being ‘dead on arrival’ less probable and offering greater hope for its potential impact. Actors shall be ready to admit the (im-)probability of their hypothesized forecast and embrace new, unanticipated events in the course of political dialogue.
*Eyob Asfaw (eyob.asfaw@aau.edu.et ) is staff of Addis Ababa University and currently a PhD student of Sustainable Development at CSD, AAU. His interest includes governance, sustainable development, peace and inclusion.
References
Felek, M. Z. (2024). The 2022 Ethiopia’s first-ever national dialogue formation: Analyzing challenges and prospects. Cogent Social Sciences, 10(1), 2303807. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2024.2303807
Jervis, R. (2009). Black Swans in Politics. Critical Review, 21(4), 475–489. https://doi.org/10.1080/08913810903441419
Liyew, D. M. (2025). Ethiopia’s national dialogue derailed: A critical review of legitimacy, inclusion, and process. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 43(4), 532–548. https://doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2025.2595933
Mattes, R. and Teka,M. ( 2016) Ethiopians’ views of democratic government: Fear, ignorance, or unique understanding of democracy? Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 164
from website.. and I am currently I am doing ReRemy PhD research as a fulfillment since I am a PhD Candidate of Sustainable Development at Addis Ababa University. The title of my dissertation is The Paradox of Economic Progress: Growth and Youth Unemployment in Ethiopia (2019 to Present). Now I want to make you an Key Interview Informant for the chapter dubbed as ‘’The Implementation Gap: Analyzing the National Level disconnect between youth employment policies and practice of youth unemployment”’ So, can you respectfully request you to be my informant given your expertise and in-depth knowledge of the area. I would love to meet you at your conven
ience? [in person or zoom]( for about 30-40 minutes of interview) Please find below the support letter and interview guide attached Regards Eyob Asfaw
