Falsehood Debunked

Op-ed by  Ayele Yimer

 Addis Ababa, May 28, 2026 —In a flurry of commentary on the 7th Ethiopian National General Election published in various international magazines, there is an overt attempt to cast aspersions on Ethiopia’s efforts to build an inclusive and democratic system of governance. As a prime example of such publications, the piece published by AFP on The Africa Report happens to be quite typical. This piece starts with a very sensational title that betrays the biased position of the author from the get-go. Perhaps a bias that the author seeks to hide behind an entire news agency instead of being frank is sharing his/her identity.

To support the conclusion embedded in its title, the article starts with a glaring falsehood and claims that “economic reform has stalled.” No evidence to substantiate this claim is provided. None seems to be needed. Apparently, if you are a Western news agency, you can make up facts about African countries as you go. Never mind that the IMF has projected that Ethiopia’s GDP is expected to grow by 9.2% in the coming year. That is how stagnating economies perform, according to the AFP.

Then, proceeding from the economic to the security and political, the article paints a picture in which the whole nation is unraveling and collapsing. The picture that the AFP is trying to present does not tally with the fact that 57 million Ethiopians are voting, many of whom are living in regional states that are supposedly engulfed by conflict, such as the Amhara and Oromia regions.

It is true that there are security challenges and low-intensity insurgencies in pockets of these two regions, which happen to be the two largest regional states in Ethiopia. In fact, some of the armed groups in the Amhara regional state have openly threatened voters from registering and voting.

Despite all their attempts to obstruct the election, they have managed to derail the electoral process only in 8 out of 137 constituencies in the regional state. In the Oromia region, the election is taking place in all constituencies.But the narrative one would get from the articles being churned out by the likes of the AFP would have you believe that most of the country has gone up in flames.

The biases and misrepresentations with which such articles are riddled make it too time-consuming to go through each claim and debunk them. It suffices to note that one of the fastest-growing economies in the world is apparently a country in which economic reforms have stalled, and one of the biggest democratic exercises on the continent is happening in a country that is “torn by armed conflict.”But the problem with these articles goes deeper. Yes, problems and challenges are blown out of proportion, and there is inaccurate and biased reporting, if one could call it ‘reporting’ to begin with.

What is disturbing about these pieces is something that goes beyond the falsehoods and misrepresentations. It is the attitude and mentality that underlies them. In the piece we have taken as an example, all three experts who are quoted as authorities are white men. It is as if there are no Ethiopian experts who could opine on the state of affairs in Ethiopia. White men who do not speak a single local language, most of whom have never lived and worked in Ethiopia, are called upon to pass judgment on the leadership of a nation of 130 million.

They make up for what they lack in understanding of the complexities of the country by relying on stereotypes and tired tropes. An African leader, according to the established norms and conventional wisdom of “Africanist,” has to fit either of two stereotypes: he or she has to be either an angelic reformer or a villainous dictator. Western “analysts”, “experts”, and “diplomats” make the judgment call, in their infinite wisdom. Largely Western-owned media outlets and news agencies circulate and disseminate that judgment. They set the narrative and dictate the terms.

Let me borrow from the famous words of Winston Churchill, a pioneer of all the privileged white young men passing judgment on “natives,” not too unlike some Western correspondents who continue in that “venerable tradition” that tradition.

Churchill is reported to have said this about Russia: “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” For the simpletons who think they have understood Ethiopia and are experts on it, I say: Ethiopia is a ቅኔ, wrapped in an እንቆቅልሽ, inside a ሚስጥር. Before these supposed experts venture to write a book or speak on a podcast or give a quote on Ethiopia and its leadership, I suggest that they take some time to understand the ቅኔ, እንቆቅልሽ, and ሚስጥር that is Ethiopia.

Source:  The Pulse of Africa