Campaign posters of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party line the road leading to his birth town of Beshasha where he is a local hero.
He was born in 1976 into a modest family in the rural town of around 8,000 inhabitants, and is the first person from the Oromo community to lead Ethiopia.
Residents point to recent development projects as signs of change.
Despite its modest size, the town benefits from the modernisation projects and construction works Abiy has, in the main, devoted to major cities and certain specific remote areas.
Houses and a library are springing up and numerous brand-new small shops line the impeccably paved road from Jimma, the nearest major town in Oromia.
“We didn’t expect roads like this to be built here. Within just eight or nine months, they completed projects that transformed the area,” says 29-year-old shopkeeper Haider Fayidi.
He is one of many residents in the town who speak with pride about Abiy and the transformation they say his government has brought to the area.
The Oromo are the largest of Ethiopia’s 80-odd ethnic groups but have felt marginalised for decades.
“Previously, we were told that an Oromo could never come to power. That is what we kept hearing. We never thought the leader of Ethiopia would come from this town,” Fayidi says.
Abiy, who has been in office since 2018, is widely expected to consolidate power in the country’s general election on Monday.
Initially feted globally for his democratic reforms, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize laureate then presided over a civil war in Tigray and ongoing ethnic insurgencies.
But despite growing criticism of his administration which is seen as increasingly autocratic, “Abiymania” is still very much alive in Beshasha.
Abdulqadir Abagaron, 59, a farmer from Beshasha who knew Abiy before he became prime minister, had praise for the country’s leader.
“He has always possessed a uniquely gifted nature given to him by God, even from childhood. He was truly a special child. Even back then, he was someone who consistently worked to bring peace,” he says.
Abiy’s party holds a massive 96 per cent of seats in the outgoing parliament and is widely expected to win a landslide victory.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring about reconciliation between Ethiopia and neighbouring Eritrea, following two decades of conflict and subsequent acrimonious relations.
But the war Abiy led between 2020 and 2022 against the dissident Ethiopian state of Tigray has tarnished his reputation as a man of peace.
The war in Tigray claimed at least 600,000 lives and over the past three years, relations with Eritrea have once again become strained, raising fears of a new conflict.
Abiy is expected to cast his vote on 1 June in Beshasha, with dozens of locals cleaning the streets ahead of his arrival.
