Abiy has got a 2nd chance!
The last three years have been the most challenging transitional years for Ethiopia. The internal in-fightings fuelled by Egypt's hidden destabilization hand and the interference of Eritrea and other foreign powers challenged the continuation of the country as we know it. Abiy's unpredictable behaviour and patterned deviation between what he talks and does continuous to further divide the country and tear it apart. His dependence on Isaias Afeworki , the Eritrean army and security for his survival has created the confusion on who is running the country and forced us to ask "Is Abiy the puppet of Isaias"? Abiy failed to bring any positive change over the last three years and wasted his time fighting and manipulating for his political survival. The democratization process has been very slow, security has further deteriorated : ethinic based killings, the genocidal war in Tigray and civil wars in Oromia, Amhara and Afar etc have brought the country to the point of disintegration, the economy has stagnated with double digit hyper inflation, the job market has been frozen( except the military ), tenfold increase of corruption and lawlessness , and any positive economic trends from the TPLF/EPRDF era has been reversed. Abiy and his officials and the media wasted their precious time on a perpetual propaganda to demonize mainly the TPLF and the Tigray people instead of focusing on reconcilation and unifying the country and moving the country to the future.On the diplomatic front Ethiopia failed to make progress on the water related issues with Sudan and Egypt. While Abiy should have stipulated clear and objective negotiation points and do transparent and hard negotiation, it wasted it's time dragging the negotiation process and claiming soveriginity issues at the cost of further instability of Ethiopia with hidden hands of Sudan/ Egypt. Knowing the fact that the water issue is "national security" issue for Egypt and Sudan, and same is true for Ethiopia, Abiy has no option but to commercialize the water share agreement, agree to build more reservoir dams in Ethiopia that are beneficial for the three countries and develop a transparent negotiation goals and try to reach a win-win solution with the support of the international community. On the Tigray, Oromia and other internal issues Abiy has no option other than solving it through negotiation with TPLF , OLA and others unless he wants to spend his precious developmental time and term waging endless destructive wave of battles. On his relationship with the developed world, he followed the confrontational approach of Isaias Afeworki that destroyed Eritrea and shattered the dream of Eritreans and Ethiopia is currently facing sanction and marginalization. Ethiopia has to have strong strategic relationship with the USA and Israel as an anchor for it's security and economic progress while following multi-lateral cooperation with Europe, China and others. It is my expectation and hope that learning from last three years of his experience he will come up with fresh ideas and approaches that will address the internal issues to stabilize the country, the water issue with Egypt and Sudan for compromised commercial and technical agreement and reversing the negative trend on the diplomatic front with the USA and the developed world, so that he will be able to realize his vision of prospering Ethiopia. If he follows same as the last three years, Ethiopia will be disintegrated and he will be among the leaders failed their country! I hope he chooses the path of love, forgiveness, reconciliation , democracy and prosperity!