Born in the city of Agaro in Oromia, Abiy comes from a mixed Christian-Muslim family. He joined the OPDO in the late 1980s. His military days saw him serve and rise to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, where he also took part in the UN peacekeeping mission to Rwanda.
Composed of four ethnically based parties, the EPRDF and its allies wield unchecked power in Ethiopia and control all seats in the parliament, which must confirm the new prime minister
As leader of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), Abiy is set to take over from Hailemariam Desalegn, who announced his resignation last month.
The decision to elect Abiy as party leader was made behind closed doors by 180 EPRDF elites at the end of a week-long meeting.
A former minister of science and technology, Abiy was became a soldier in the now Ethiopian National Defense Force in 1993 and worked mostly in intelligence and communications department. In 1995, after the Genocide against Tutsis, he was deployed as a member of the United Nations Peace Keeping Force (UNAMIR), in Rwanda.
Abiy will be the first Oromo prime minister in the 27-year rule of the EPRDF, which has presided over years of rapid economic growth in Africa’s second most-populous country despite growing unease both at home and abroad with its authoritarian governing style.
Beyond just marking an ethnic milestone, many Ethiopians are hopeful Abiy will change the ways of the party, which assumed power in 1991 after routing the communist Derg junta.
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