The Horn Of Africa After Ethiopia’s 2026 Elections: What To Watch? | The Reporter Ethiopia
(The views expressed in this article do not represent the institution with which the author is affiliated. )The Prosperity Party won Ethiopia’s 7th national election, securing 438 parliamentary seats as. . .
(The views expressed in this article do not represent the institution with which the author is affiliated. )The Prosperity Party won Ethiopia’s 7th national election, securing 438 parliamentary seats as declared by the National Election Board of Ethiopia. Following this victory, a key issue to consider is the Prosperity Party’s regional foreign policy ambitions for its second term. Ethiopia’s foreign policy approach in the Horn of Africa is marked by considerable ambiguity, particularly concerning its regional goals and orientation. The government’s foreign policy is grounded in the belief that regional integration and cooperation provide the most sustainable solutions to the shared political, economic, and security challenges facing the region. While integration and cooperation are central to Ethiopia’s regional strategy, their implementation may differ across neighboring countries, influenced by specific national interests, bilateral relationships, and changing regional dynamics. As a sovereign state guided by both national interests and broader regional responsibilities, Ethiopia seeks to advance a vision of mutual prosperity, interdependence, and collective security in the Horn of Africa. Within this framework, the pursuit of synergy among regional states remains a defining principle of its foreign policy. This commentary seeks to provide an overview of the government’s likely foreign policy priorities and regional orientation over the next five years. Particular attention is given to Ethiopia’s relations with Sudan, Eritrea, and Somalia, while also considering the broader implications for engagement with other countries in the Horn of Africa. From The Reporter MagazineEritrea: Second Rapprochement or Continued Stalemate?The Ethiopia–Eritrea relationship remains one of the most structurally constrained bilateral dynamics in the Horn of Africa. Despite the historic 2018 peace agreement that ended two decades of formal hostility, normalization has stalled. The second term of the Prosperity Party will likely see no major breakthrough in the near term, primarily due to the nature of the Eritrean state itself: a highly centralized, ideologically rigid regime with limited institutional capacity for the kind of substantive bilateral negotiations that would be required to advance the relationship meaningfully. The absence of modern, pluralistic institutions within Eritrea creates an asymmetry at the negotiating table that makes structured engagement difficult. Ethiopia cannot realistically pursue normalization on terms that require institutional reciprocity from a partner that lacks the frameworks to sustain it. Nevertheless, the relationship need not remain entirely static. From The Reporter MagazineIncremental progress may be achievable through the mediation of regional and continental partners, including the African Union and friendly third-party states with trusted relationships with both Asmara and Addis Ababa. High-level diplomatic dialogue, facilitated by regional and external intermediaries, could reduce tensions and create the conditions for cautious confidence-building between Addis Ababa and Asmara. In this calculus, the United States and Israel are positioned to play a decisive role, driven by their broader grand strategic interests in securing the Red Sea corridor and safeguarding freedom of navigation. Both Washington and Jerusalem have a compelling strategic rationale to encourage a second rapprochement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, pressing both parties toward a posture of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs as a foundational condition for regional stability. Critically, the United States and Israel may choose to incentivize Eritrea’s constructive engagement and broker a degree of normalization—not necessarily contingent on measurable changes in the regime’s internal character or governance behavior, but rather on Eritrea’s willingness to align with the broader regional security architecture that serves Western and Israeli strategic interests. This approach reflects a pragmatic recalibration prioritizing strategic outcomes over political transformation, whereby stabilizing the Red Sea transit corridor and degrading the operational capacity of Houthi forces takes precedence. Eritrea’s potential cooperation is regarded as a strategic asset worth pursuing through carefully calibrated diplomatic and economic incentives, irrespective of the regime’s broader conduct. A more substantive opening could emerge if the Eritrean leadership concedes to negotiate on equal terms, particularly regarding economic and commercial partnerships. Should Eritrea offer Ethiopia meaningful and reliable access to the Red Sea as part of a reciprocal arrangement, Addis Ababa would likely be prepared to engage constructively in pursuit of mutual economic benefit. Until such a concession materializes, however, the relationship is expected to remain in a managed state of low-intensity competition. One challenge in this regard comes from Egypt, which is moving aggressively to exclude Ethiopia as a player in Red Sea affairs. We have witnessed this through frequent high-level bilateral meetings between Egypt and Asmara, held in both Asmara and Cairo. In all six meetings held over the past year and a half, the two sides have framed the Red Sea issue in terms of littoral versus non-littoral state status. From an Ethiopian perspective, this deepening alignment is seen as part of a broader Egyptian strategy to contain Ethiopia’s rise in the Horn and constrain its Red Sea ambitions, with Eritrea increasingly viewed in Addis Ababa as an extension of Egypt’s foreign policy instruments against Ethiopia. Yet the Red Sea is a natural waterway that belongs to all, and Ethiopia’s security, political, and economic interests have never been separable from it throughout history. Egypt has played an active and destructive role in regional stability on Red Sea security matters, driven more by the pursuit of domestic legitimacy than by genuine economic or political concerns. A foundational prerequisite for any genuine normalization, however, is Eritrea’s cessation of support for anti-government insurgent groups operating against Ethiopia. So long as Asmara continues to provide sanctuary, logistical support, or political backing to Ethiopian armed opposition movements, the prospect of a stable bilateral relationship remains structurally out of reach. Refraining from interference in Ethiopia’s internal affairs would be the minimum threshold for meaningful engagement. Yet, this is precisely where the deeper structural problem lies. The Eritrean regime’s political identity has, since its inception, been constructed in large part in relation to Ethiopia as a rival, a threat, and a reference point for Asmara’s own internal legitimacy narratives. For the ruling PFDJ, Ethiopia is not simply a neighboring state to be managed diplomatically; it is the central organizing preoccupation of Eritrean political thought. This makes a genuine reorientation of focus toward Eritrea’s own pressing domestic challenges of poverty, emigration, and institutional underdevelopment extraordinarily difficult to conceive of, let alone execute, under the current leadership. True normalization between the two states may therefore remain contingent not merely on diplomatic goodwill, but on a deeper transformation of the Eritrean regime’s political character. Sudan: Prioritizing Stability and Civilian AdministrationSudan remains Ethiopia’s foremost regional priority in the second term. The protracted conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has deepened instability along Ethiopia’s western border, generating a cascading set of security and humanitarian challenges that directly affect Ethiopian interests. Key security and stability concerns drive Ethiopia’s strategic prioritization of the Sudan portfolio:Illicit Arms Flows:The unchecked flow of illicit arms across the Sudanese border, combined with the exploitation of Sudanese border zones as staging grounds and transit corridors by growing insurgent coalitions. War Economy Networks:Armed networks sustained by entrenched illicit cross-border trade operations, enabled by brokers across all hierarchies of state and non-state actors, creating a self-financing war economy that complicates interdiction and erodes institutional governance. Humanitarian Pressure:The ongoing conflict within Sudan continues to displace significant civilian populations into Ethiopia, placing mounting pressure on humanitarian infrastructure and host communities. Ethiopia has stated at many stages that a Sudan-led peace initiative and a stable Sudan governed by a legitimate civilian administration is the best option, though it remains up to the Sudanese people to decide their own model of governance. An unstable, militarized Sudan serves as a permissive environment for threats that directly undermine Ethiopia’s internal security. Accordingly, Ethiopia will continue to use its diplomatic leverage within the IGAD framework, the African Union, and bilateral channels to support peace processes and civilian-led transition efforts in Sudan. This position implicitly contrasts with Egypt’s approach to the Sudanese crisis. Cairo has sought to maintain influence by cultivating ties with Sudan’s military leadership—a posture aligned with Egypt’s interest in leveraging Sudanese instability as a counterweight to Ethiopian power, particularly in the context of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) negotiations. Ethiopia is unlikely to shift course, viewing a militarized or fragmented Sudan as inimical to its own security architecture and regional standing. Sudan’s recurring political crises suggest that any durable settlement cannot treat civilian and military actors as separable tracks, since the country’s history shows both have repeatedly acted as joint agents of change rather than rivals. The 1964 “October Revolution” that toppled General Abboud, the 1985 uprising that ended Nimeiry’s sixteen-year rule, and the 2019 mass protests that forced Bashir’s ouster all depended on a convergence of civilian street mobilization and military defection or acquiescence, not civilian action alone. This shared history of co-produced transitions means the military has never been merely an external threat to democratic change in Sudan; it has been, at critical junctures, a co-author of it. The recurring failure has come afterward, in the transition phase, when the same actors who cooperated to remove a regime compete over who controls the state that replaces it—a dynamic visible in the fractured power-sharing arrangements following both 1985 and 2019, and again in the 2021 coup that unraveled the civilian-military transitional council formed after Bashir’s fall. Rather than pursuing a model that seeks to fully subordinate or exclude the military from governance, a more realistic path may be one that formalizes civil-military coordination from the outset of any transition. This involves building institutional mechanisms for shared oversight, phased security-sector reform, and negotiated timelines for military withdrawal from politics, since the historical record indicates that transitions imposed on the military rather than negotiated with it have consistently proven unstable. Somalia: Sustained Normalization and Somaliland Left UnresolvedThe Ethiopia–Somalia relationship has undergone a significant transformation since the tensions that erupted following the January 2024 Memorandum of Understanding between Ethiopia and Somaliland. The MoU, which included provisions for Ethiopian sea access, was interpreted by Mogadishu as a direct challenge to Somali sovereignty and territorial integrity. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s subsequent alignment with Egypt—Ethiopia’s principal strategic rival in the region—represented a development Addis Ababa had not fully anticipated. The subsequent deterioration in bilateral relations posed a meaningful threat to Ethiopia’s broader regional security architecture, given Somalia’s centrality to counter-terrorism operations and the functioning of AMISOM successor frameworks. Beginning with the Ankara talks, Ethiopia and Somalia engaged in a deliberate normalization process. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s invitation to the GERD inauguration, his subsequent visits to Ethiopia, and the high-profile diplomatic engagement in Jigjiga conducted jointly with the President of Djibouti signal that the bilateral relationship has been substantially restored. Somalia is being reintegrated into Ethiopia’s regional cooperative framework, consistent with theMedemerprinciple of shared prosperity among neighboring states. The Somaliland question, however, remains unresolved on the ground. There was considerable expectation that Ethiopia might follow Israel as only the second state to formally recognize Somaliland. The Prosperity Party’s second term will not take this step, at least not in the near term, and this restraint reflects considered strategic calculation rather than indecision. Ethiopia already maintains de facto robust bilateral relations with Hargeisa, including formal diplomatic representation at the ambassadorial level and strong commercial ties. Formal recognition would deliver marginal practical gains while risking Somalia’s return to the Egyptian strategic orbit—an outcome Ethiopia regards as far more costly than the status quo. Even if major external actors such as the UAE, India, or the United States were to extend recognition to Somaliland, Ethiopia is unlikely to follow suit in the second term. What Affects Regional Ambition and Foreign Policy Behavior?The regional foreign policy priorities outlined above must be assessed against a set of structural constraints that will materially limit Ethiopia’s diplomatic bandwidth in the second term. Ethiopia’s regional vision underMedemeris not an aspiration to dominate the Horn, but to shape a stable, self-reliant, and interconnected regional order in which all states benefit from collective stability and prosperity. This vision is organized around three layered goals:Security:Neutralizing regional fragility, preventing external encirclement, and building a neighborhood in which no state is weaponized against another. Economy:Creating interconnected corridors linking Ethiopia and its neighbors to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, turning geographic proximity into shared commercial advantage. Identity:Cultivating a shared Horn consciousness rooted in cultural, historical, and ecological interdependence, moving the region from zero-sum rivalry toward a hegemony of example rather than a hegemony of power. In practice, however, the gap between this aspirational framework and regional reality is plagued by structural challenges across the Horn. Ethiopia’s regional leadership aspirations face serious contextual headwinds given the highly fragmented and polarized nature of the IGAD region. Some of these challenges are deep-rooted and structural, embedded in historical grievances, mutual mistrust, and divergent foreign policy orientations across member states. Others are proximal and acute: three of Ethiopia’s immediate neighbors—Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan—are enmeshed in civil conflicts that directly impinge on Ethiopian security interests. More critically, Sudan and Eritrea are actively pursuing policies that run contrary to Ethiopian interests, and Somalia has at times tilted in a similarly adversarial direction, as evidenced by its post-MoU alignment with Egypt. These are not merely diplomatic frictions; they reflect a neighborhood in which open hostility toward Ethiopia is a recurring, structurally embedded dynamic rather than an exception. Furthermore, neighboring states tend to evaluate Ethiopia’s foreign policy not through the lens of its stated strategic doctrine, but through the cumulative weight of historical grievances. The trust deficit across the Horn—shaped by unresolved border disputes, asymmetrical power relations, and recurring cycles of interference—means that Ethiopia’s diplomatic overtures are frequently interpreted with suspicion. Its pursuit of sea access, however economically legitimate, continues to be read by Somalia and Eritrea as potential hegemonic encroachment. Meanwhile, intensifying extra-regional competition—Egypt’s instrumentalization of the GERD, Gulf state rivalries, Turkey’s deepening military footprint in Mogadishu, the expanding strategic interests of both the United States and China, and the rift between the UAE and Saudi Arabia—further complicates Ethiopia’s room for maneuver. Domestically, Ethiopia’s most significant constraint on regional ambition is its own internal insecurity. Two internal dynamics are particularly consequential:Tigray Dynamics:The unresolved political status of the Tigray region and the continued presence of the authoritarian TPLF leadership under Debretsion Gebremichael represent a live variable in Ethiopia’s regional behavior. The TPLF’s unprincipled and tactical ties with Eritrea mean that the internal Tigray question is never fully separable from Ethiopia’s external posture. Any political breakdown in the north would immediately consume diplomatic bandwidth and erode regional credibility. Internal Insurgencies:If active insurgent movements in Oromia and Amhara continue, they will provide openings for external actors, including Eritrea, to sustain proxy leverage inside Ethiopia. Consequently, Ethiopian foreign policy behavior may experience shifts away from expected trajectories. In ConclusionThe Prosperity Party’s second term will be characterized by strategic continuity rather than a new reorientation in regional foreign policy. The overarching framework remains one of promoting stability, advancing economic integration, and positioning Ethiopia as an indispensable anchor of Horn of Africa security. The Sudan portfolio will require the most active and sustained diplomatic attention, given the direct security implications of Khartoum’s fragility. The Eritrea file will demand patience and creative use of multilateral channels—though because the Eritrean regime has shown little belief in, or experience with, multilateral forums and agenda-setting, bilateral arrangements should be reinforced by multilateral cooperation to ensure sustainability. Finally, the Somalia relationship, now normalized, must be carefully maintained and insulated from third-party interference. (Gizachew Asrat isSenior Researcher in the Horn of Africa)Contributed by Gizachew Asrat