 | |
| President | Abiy Ahmed |
| Vice-Presidents | Adem Farah Temesgen Tiruneh |
| Founded | 1 December 2019 (2019-12-1) |
| Merger of | ADP ANDP APDO BGPDUF ESPDP GPDM HNL ODP SEPDM |
| Preceded by | EPRDF |
| Headquarters | Addis Ababa |
| Newspaper | New Vision |
| Membership(2022) |  11,000,000+[1] |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Centre[8][9] |
| House of Peoples' Representatives | 410 / 547 Nebe,Nebe |
| Website | |
| prosperity | |
TheProsperity Party (Amharic:ብልጽግና ፓርቲ,romanized: Bilits’igina Paritī;Oromo:Paartii Badhaadhiinaa) is apolitical party inEthiopia that was established on 1 December 2019 as a successor to theEthiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front byPrime MinisterAbiy Ahmed. It is currently the ruling party of Ethiopia.
The merger into a countrywide party is part of Abiy's general policy of distancing the country's politics fromethnic federalism.[10] The party ran for the first time in the2021 general election.
After being elected in 2018, Ethiopian Prime MinisterAbiy Ahmed began carrying out significantreforms that aimed to merge Ethiopia's ethnic parties and reduce the influence of theTigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), as the organization had dominated the rulingEthiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) political coalition since thefall of the Derg regime in 1991.[11]
The Prosperity Party (PP) was formed and formally recognized by theNational Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) in December 2019 through the merging of three member parties of theEPRDF. These were theAmhara Democratic Party (ADP), theOromo Democratic Party (ODP) and theSouthern Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement (SEPDM). Also included in the merger was theAfar National Democratic Party (ANDP), theBenishangul-Gumuz People's Democratic Unity Front (BGPDUF), theEthiopian Somali People's Democratic Party (ESPDP), theGambela People's Democratic Movement (GPDM) and theHareri National League (HNL).[12][13] The merger was approved by the executive committee of the EPRDF. In November 2019 Abiy tweeted:
The unanimous decision passed today to merge the Party is a crucial step in harnessing our energy to work toward a shared vision. Prosperity Party is committed to strengthening & applying a true Federal system which recognizes the diversity and contributions of all Ethiopians.[14]
Notably, the powerfulTigrayan Peoples Liberation Front viewed the merger as illegal and was not party to it.[15] Abiy directly called on the TPLF to dissolve and become part of the Prosperity Party, which precipitated the TPLF shifting its personnel and resources from the nation's capital ofAddis Ababa to theTigray regional state capital ofMekelle during 2020.[16]
The Prosperity Party has been seen as supporting Ethiopiancivic nationalism due to the merger of theOromo Democratic Party with theAmhara Democratic Party,Argoba People's Democratic Organization,Benishangul-Gumuz People's Democratic Unity Front,Ethiopian Somali People's Democratic Party,Gambela People's Democratic Movement,Afar National Democratic Party,Hareri National League, and theSouthern Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement ethnicity-based political parties into the new multi-ethnic party, thus moving these predecessor parties away from theirethnic nationalist andpro-ethnic federalism past into a party that promotes a unifiedEthiopian national identity and non-ethnicity basedfederalism. However, this has been seen by opponents as steps towards the possibility of taking political powers based ongroup rights away from the various ethnic groups, while proponents see it as a way to move Ethiopian politics and governmental administration away from ethnicity-basedidentity politics, supporting theindividual rights of each person, to mitigate the rise of ethnic nationalism, to foster national unity and solidarity, and to include in thedemocratic process political parties of several ethnic groups and regions that were once deemed too inferior by the TPLF-ledEthiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front regime to fully join theone-party dominated coalition government or be full partakers in revolutionary democracy because of their largelypastoralist way of life.[17][18][19][20][21]
With the formation of the Prosperity Party in 2019, Abiy Ahmed promised to redress the marginal status of the regional states in the Ethiopian periphery. Satellite parties that represented so-called ‘emerging’ regions, includingAfar,Somali,Benishangul-Gumuz andGambella, were promised equal representation and became part of the ruling PP.[22]
The party's logo consists of two black hands holding three human figures (one blue, one yellow, and one pink), with sun rays shooting outwards from the human figures.
The Prosperity Party (PP) exists along ethnic lines. There is an Amhara PP (APP), an Oromo PP (OPP), a Somali PP (SPP), a Sidama PP (SPP), and a Tigrayan PP, led by Nebiyou Shulmichael[23] and of whichAbraham Belay[24] andMulu Nega are prominent members. Many other ethnic groups have their own PP branch as well. There exists a substantial divide between the Oromo and Amhara wings of the party, with academic Tobias Hagmann noting that the two sides are largely kept together through opposition to the TPLF.[25]
The Tigrayan PP is in strong conflict with the TPLF as it has supported Abiy Ahmed in theTigray War. Due to this war, the Tigray PP has become isolated in Tigrayan public opinion to the point that one of the regional PP leaders, Abraham Belay, was forbidden by his own mother to visit her house and her neighbourhood.[26] In March 2021, theOromia Prosperity Party (OPP) andAmhara Prosperity Party (APP) came with opposite statements, each blaming the other for being the cause of violence and killings.[27][28]
| Election | Leader | Seats | Government | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seats | +/- | |||
| 2021 | Abiy Ahmed | 410 / 483 | 410 | Majority |
The Prosperity Party has been increasingly accused of spreadinganti-intellectualism as well as thecult of personality of premier and party chief Abiy Ahmed, dubbed the "Prosperity Party Gospel", a term evoking theprosperity gospel philosophy. Its members also accused of propagating fallacious statements regardless of reality behind the current Ethiopian situation such as periodicalintrastate conflicts.[29][30][31]
| Federal | |
|---|---|
| Regional | |
