Fully Authoritarian
World’s Population
Population
HRF classifies Ethiopia as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Ethiopia is a parliamentary republic organized along ethnic federalism. The current Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, assumed power in 2018 following the resignation of Hailemariam Desalegn amid a wave of pro-democracy protests against the former ruling coalition of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Abiy initially ushered in democratic reforms, but he has since reverted to the authoritarian power consolidation of the EPRDF under a new ruling coalition called the Prosperity Party (PP). Since 2020, political tensions between the federal government and ethnic Tigrayan, Oromo, and Amhara opposition groups have sparked a major war in Tigray and armed insurgencies in Oromiya and Amhara.
National elections in Ethiopia are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. While elections continue to take place, the regime has entrenched its advantage through sustained suppression of the opposition, restrictive laws that curtail meaningful political competition, and deliberate efforts to erode the independence of electoral oversight bodies. Since the first multi-party election in 1995, the ruling coalition—which transmuted from the EPRDF to the PP in 2018—has organized six elections in which it claimed on average 88% of seats in the federal parliament. The most competitive polls took place in 2005 when the opposition was credibly thought to have won the elections; however, the ruling coalition arbitrarily claimed victory amid a harsh crackdown on protests against electoral fraud. Since then, repression and manipulation of the electoral playing field have left the mainstream opposition severely weakened.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Freedom of dissent is severely restricted under an increasingly authoritarian regime that systematically employs a spectrum of tactics to punish criticism, stifles independent voices, and criminalizes protests. The regime unfairly shuts down major independent dissenting organizations, heavily manipulates media coverage in its favor, seriously and unfairly represses protests, and seriously intimidates independent, dissenting media, political leaders, organizations, or members of the general public, and unfairly obstructs their work.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The institutional framework is dominated by the executive, which has systematically subordinated the courts and legislature, allowing the regime to significantly undermine electoral competition, repress criticism, retaliate against dissent, or systematically weaken accountability mechanisms.
National elections in Ethiopia are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. Despite regularly conducting elections, the regime has unfairly and seriously skewed the electoral playing field in its favor with systematic repression of the main opposition, imposition of legal restrictions on the opposition’s ability to contest and campaign, and undermining of independent electoral oversight.
Long before the election, the regime unfairly and significantly hindered the electoral campaign of mainstream opposition parties and candidates through office closures, harassment, violence, arbitrary arrests, and mass detention of opposition leaders. In early 2020, dozens of senior opposition leaders of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), and Balderas for True Democracy (Balderas Party) — including Abdi Regassa, Bekele Gerba, Jawar Mohammed, and Eskinder Nega — were arbitrarily arrested and detained, with seven of them held for nearly three years before being released in September 2024. Five political parties, in a June 2021 complaint letter to the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE), raised concern about killings, attempted killings, detentions, and the intimidation of party candidates and supporters by authorities.
In March 2020, the regime invoked the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic to postpone general elections scheduled for August 2020. In the ensuing months, political and military tensions between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)—the ousted dominant party of the former ruling EPRDF coalition—degenerated into war. The spillover of the Tigray war, the Oromo Liberation Army insurgency, and the regime’s repression produced a situation in which delayed general elections took place in June and September 2021 in only select parts of the country. With senior leaders of the real, mainstream democratic opposition in jail, the boycott of some major democratic opposition parties such as the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), and the exclusion of the TPLF (which was proscribed as a terrorist organization), the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) that the ruling PP coalition claimed 457 out of 547 (89.18%) of federal parliamentary seats, while the runner up in the election, the Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice (EZEMA) opposition party, secured only four seats.
Abiy’s administration has seriously undermined independent electoral oversight. It hindered international observers, restricted local observers, and staffed NEBE with ruling party loyalists. The head of the NEBE is a regime appointee confirmed by a parliament dominated by the ruling party. Although the regime initiated electoral reforms in 2018, such as appointing the widely respected former opposition leader and judge Birtukan Midekssa to head the NEBE and accrediting thousands of domestic observers, it has since eroded that credibility by replacing the NEBE leadership, tightening restrictions, and escalating hostility toward international and domestic observers. For example, in 2021, the regime obstructed the European Union’s electoral observation mission by denying access to their secure satellite communication and barring a coalition of about 3,000 civil society observers from tabulation sites, subjecting them to widespread harassment.
Furthermore, the regime has engaged in significant electoral law manipulation. The ruling party manipulated the legal framework by amending electoral laws close to the election and imposing onerous registration requirements. For example, the NEBE, through Proclamation 1162 of 2019, imposed harsh registration requirements for political parties by increasing the number of required founding members from 1,500 to 10,000 for national parties and from 750 to 4,000 for regional parties. The amended electoral law deliberately obstructed opposition groups from registering and competing by imposing disproportionately high thresholds, disadvantaging smaller opposition groups that lack nationwide structures, while favoring the ruling party, which possesses the capacity and institutional reach to meet the requirements with ease.
Ultimately, some opposition parties boycotted elections, citing widespread political repression and an environment that made meaningful participation impossible. For example, the OFC and the OLF opposition parties from Oromia — the country’s largest regional constituency with 178 parliamentary seats — boycotted the 2021 general elections. The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) boycotted the second round of elections in September 2021.
In Ethiopia, independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The regime unfairly shuts down major independent dissenting organizations, heavily manipulates media coverage in its favor, unfairly censors dissenting speech, intimidates dissenting media, political leaders, organizations, and the general public, and unfairly represses protests and gatherings.
The regime has unfairly shut down major independent, dissenting organizations. It has revoked operational licenses, raided offices, suspended civil society organizations (CSOs), and enforced restrictive legislation. For example, from November 2024 to March 2025, the Authority for Civil Society Organizations, a regime-controlled regulatory body, arbitrarily suspended three prominent human rights groups—The Center for Advancement of Rights and Democracy (CARD), the Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia (AHRE), and Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR)—on vague allegations of “lacking political neutrality” and “engaging against national interest.” This has also been used against media outlets. In 2021, the regime suspended Addis Standard, a leading independent outlet, on false allegations of promoting a terrorist group’s agenda.
Moreso, the regime seriously intimidates independent, dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public, unfairly obstructing their work. Dissenters face arbitrary arrests, detention, harassment, threats, violence, and torture. For example, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, the nation’s oldest independent human rights entity, has faced escalating harassment, threats, and intimidation of its staff, including the January 2023 arrests of Daniel Tesfaye, Bizuayehu Wendimu, Bereket Daniel, and Nahom Hussien, in the Alem Bank area of Addis Ababa while they investigated forced evictions. Despite a brief press freedom spring following Abiy’s ascent to power, Ethiopia has severely backslided, with over 200 journalists arrested, 59 in exile, and at least one killed since 2019 in a government drone strike. In 2025, Ethiopia ranked second to Eritrea among African countries with severe restrictions on journalists.
In addition, the regime seriously censors dissenting speech. It has politicized the media regulator, systematically harassed journalists, and blocked critical reporting. The controversial 2025 amendment to the 2021 Media Law placed the Ethiopian Media Authority (EMA) under the control of the regime, granting it expanded powers to arbitrarily sanction broadcasters, enforce pre-broadcast approval, and impose full legal liability on outlets for their live broadcasts. These powers have been instrumental in silencing critical coverage, systematically obstructing independent reporting, and criminalizing unsanctioned narratives. For example, in April 2025, authorities arrested at least seven independent journalists from the Ethiopian Broadcasting Service on baseless terrorism charges for broadcasting a documentary, while the EMA suspended the program that aired it, Addis Meiraf, and compelled the media owner to issue a public apology on the regime-controlled Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation. Additionally, the regime has imposed information blackouts and enforced pro-regime reporting. For example, since 2019, the regime has imposed information blackouts, including 26 internet shutdowns.
The regime seriously and unfairly repressed protests or gatherings. Protesters face arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention without trial, intimidation, and excessive use of force. For example, in May 2025, authorities forcefully responded to a rare, peaceful nationwide strike by health workers, arresting over 212 professionals who were detained without trial or due process. In August 2020, the regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters, triggered by the unsolved assassination of popular musician Hachalu Hundessa, resulted in at least 239 deaths and the incommunicado detention of over 9,000 protesters.
In Ethiopia, institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime, allowing it to significantly undermine electoral competition, repress criticism, or retaliate against dissent and dismantle accountability mechanisms. The regime has undermined independent judicial oversight by using the executive branch and the legislature, which is dominated by the ruling party, to control judicial appointments and removals, thereby placing the judiciary under executive administrative authority.
Courts, to some extent, fail to check the regime’s attempts to significantly undermine electoral competition. While courts can adjudicate procedural election disputes, the interpretation of constitutional rights, such as the legality of electoral laws, falls outside their authority. Instead, the House of Federation (HoF), a political body controlled by the ruling party, and the Council of Constitutional Inquiry (CCI), its advisory body, have that power. Consequently, the courts are confined to procedural election disputes, with constitutional electoral irregularities left to the HoF. For example, in 2021, the Federal Supreme Court ruled that jailed opposition leader Eskinder Nega was eligible to run, and the Federal High Court successfully ordered the election board to reprint ballots to include him, but the courts were unable to intervene in the regime’s repeated election delays, deferring instead to the HoF, which approved the delays without judicial scrutiny.
Furthermore, courts unfairly fail to check, or enable, the regime’s attempts to repress criticism. Although courts occasionally uphold procedural rights, such as granting bail to detained journalists, opposition leaders, and civil society actors, regime authorities often undermine these rulings, thereby reducing judicial authority to mere symbolism, especially in politically sensitive cases. For example, in June 2025, Tesfalem Woldeyes, editor of Ethiopia Insider, was arrested for “disseminating false information,” and despite two court rulings ordering his release, authorities refused to comply. Similarly, during the 2020 crackdown, authorities ignored several Federal High Court bail orders, re-arresting detainees and holding them incommunicado without charge. Nevertheless, in several instances, the courts routinely upheld pretextual charges wielded by the regime to silence dissent. In May 2025, journalist Ahmed Awga was sentenced to two years by the Fafen Zone High Court for a Facebook post he did not author, and in June, the Federal High Court sentenced Wondimagegn Bergena to seven years for allegedly “defaming the government” on social media.
Members of the judicial branch who act contrary to the regime’s interest or who are perceived as a threat by the regime frequently face retaliation. Detention without due process, removal from office, harassment, and coercion of judges to reverse rulings are more prevalent in regional courts, where retaliation is more frequent than at the federal level. For example, between the last quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, 89 judges resigned due to security and salary issues, such as arbitrary detention, intimidation by regional security forces, and violence linked to armed non-state actors in conflict-affected regions. In 2024 alone, 35 judges from the Amhara region were arbitrarily arrested in direct retaliation for their judicial work.
Judicial, legislative, and executive institutions frequently and unfairly fail to hold regime officials accountable. The ruling party dominates the legislative function, reducing it to a rubber-stamp for the regime’s decisions, while the courts are weakened by constitutional constraints and the routine disregard of their rulings. For example, in mid-2020, lawmakers extended Prime Minister Abiy’s term beyond its constitutional limit, a move that critics denounced as an unconstitutional power grab.
The regime has subjected independent institutions to reforms that seriously weaken their independence. It has weakened legislative oversight of approval and appointment processes, consolidating excessive power in the Prime Minister’s Office. For example, in April 2025, through controversial amendments to the Media Law, the regime stripped Parliament of its oversight role and brought the media regulator under executive control by transferring the appointment of its director from an open parliamentary process to the Prime Minister’s office. The removal of transparency safeguards allowed ruling party affiliates to dominate the EMA board, as previous bans on political party members were scrapped.
HRF classifies Ethiopia as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Ethiopia is a parliamentary republic organized along ethnic federalism. The current Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, assumed power in 2018 following the resignation of Hailemariam Desalegn amid a wave of pro-democracy protests against the former ruling coalition of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Abiy initially ushered in democratic reforms, but he has since reverted to the authoritarian power consolidation of the EPRDF under a new ruling coalition called the Prosperity Party (PP). Since 2020, political tensions between the federal government and ethnic Tigrayan, Oromo, and Amhara opposition groups have sparked a major war in Tigray and armed insurgencies in Oromiya and Amhara.
National elections in Ethiopia are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. While elections continue to take place, the regime has entrenched its advantage through sustained suppression of the opposition, restrictive laws that curtail meaningful political competition, and deliberate efforts to erode the independence of electoral oversight bodies. Since the first multi-party election in 1995, the ruling coalition—which transmuted from the EPRDF to the PP in 2018—has organized six elections in which it claimed on average 88% of seats in the federal parliament. The most competitive polls took place in 2005 when the opposition was credibly thought to have won the elections; however, the ruling coalition arbitrarily claimed victory amid a harsh crackdown on protests against electoral fraud. Since then, repression and manipulation of the electoral playing field have left the mainstream opposition severely weakened.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Freedom of dissent is severely restricted under an increasingly authoritarian regime that systematically employs a spectrum of tactics to punish criticism, stifles independent voices, and criminalizes protests. The regime unfairly shuts down major independent dissenting organizations, heavily manipulates media coverage in its favor, seriously and unfairly represses protests, and seriously intimidates independent, dissenting media, political leaders, organizations, or members of the general public, and unfairly obstructs their work.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The institutional framework is dominated by the executive, which has systematically subordinated the courts and legislature, allowing the regime to significantly undermine electoral competition, repress criticism, retaliate against dissent, or systematically weaken accountability mechanisms.
National elections in Ethiopia are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. Despite regularly conducting elections, the regime has unfairly and seriously skewed the electoral playing field in its favor with systematic repression of the main opposition, imposition of legal restrictions on the opposition’s ability to contest and campaign, and undermining of independent electoral oversight.
Long before the election, the regime unfairly and significantly hindered the electoral campaign of mainstream opposition parties and candidates through office closures, harassment, violence, arbitrary arrests, and mass detention of opposition leaders. In early 2020, dozens of senior opposition leaders of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), and Balderas for True Democracy (Balderas Party) — including Abdi Regassa, Bekele Gerba, Jawar Mohammed, and Eskinder Nega — were arbitrarily arrested and detained, with seven of them held for nearly three years before being released in September 2024. Five political parties, in a June 2021 complaint letter to the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE), raised concern about killings, attempted killings, detentions, and the intimidation of party candidates and supporters by authorities.
In March 2020, the regime invoked the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic to postpone general elections scheduled for August 2020. In the ensuing months, political and military tensions between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)—the ousted dominant party of the former ruling EPRDF coalition—degenerated into war. The spillover of the Tigray war, the Oromo Liberation Army insurgency, and the regime’s repression produced a situation in which delayed general elections took place in June and September 2021 in only select parts of the country. With senior leaders of the real, mainstream democratic opposition in jail, the boycott of some major democratic opposition parties such as the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), and the exclusion of the TPLF (which was proscribed as a terrorist organization), the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) that the ruling PP coalition claimed 457 out of 547 (89.18%) of federal parliamentary seats, while the runner up in the election, the Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice (EZEMA) opposition party, secured only four seats.
Abiy’s administration has seriously undermined independent electoral oversight. It hindered international observers, restricted local observers, and staffed NEBE with ruling party loyalists. The head of the NEBE is a regime appointee confirmed by a parliament dominated by the ruling party. Although the regime initiated electoral reforms in 2018, such as appointing the widely respected former opposition leader and judge Birtukan Midekssa to head the NEBE and accrediting thousands of domestic observers, it has since eroded that credibility by replacing the NEBE leadership, tightening restrictions, and escalating hostility toward international and domestic observers. For example, in 2021, the regime obstructed the European Union’s electoral observation mission by denying access to their secure satellite communication and barring a coalition of about 3,000 civil society observers from tabulation sites, subjecting them to widespread harassment.
Furthermore, the regime has engaged in significant electoral law manipulation. The ruling party manipulated the legal framework by amending electoral laws close to the election and imposing onerous registration requirements. For example, the NEBE, through Proclamation 1162 of 2019, imposed harsh registration requirements for political parties by increasing the number of required founding members from 1,500 to 10,000 for national parties and from 750 to 4,000 for regional parties. The amended electoral law deliberately obstructed opposition groups from registering and competing by imposing disproportionately high thresholds, disadvantaging smaller opposition groups that lack nationwide structures, while favoring the ruling party, which possesses the capacity and institutional reach to meet the requirements with ease.
Ultimately, some opposition parties boycotted elections, citing widespread political repression and an environment that made meaningful participation impossible. For example, the OFC and the OLF opposition parties from Oromia — the country’s largest regional constituency with 178 parliamentary seats — boycotted the 2021 general elections. The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) boycotted the second round of elections in September 2021.
In Ethiopia, independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The regime unfairly shuts down major independent dissenting organizations, heavily manipulates media coverage in its favor, unfairly censors dissenting speech, intimidates dissenting media, political leaders, organizations, and the general public, and unfairly represses protests and gatherings.
The regime has unfairly shut down major independent, dissenting organizations. It has revoked operational licenses, raided offices, suspended civil society organizations (CSOs), and enforced restrictive legislation. For example, from November 2024 to March 2025, the Authority for Civil Society Organizations, a regime-controlled regulatory body, arbitrarily suspended three prominent human rights groups—The Center for Advancement of Rights and Democracy (CARD), the Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia (AHRE), and Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR)—on vague allegations of “lacking political neutrality” and “engaging against national interest.” This has also been used against media outlets. In 2021, the regime suspended Addis Standard, a leading independent outlet, on false allegations of promoting a terrorist group’s agenda.
Moreso, the regime seriously intimidates independent, dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public, unfairly obstructing their work. Dissenters face arbitrary arrests, detention, harassment, threats, violence, and torture. For example, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, the nation’s oldest independent human rights entity, has faced escalating harassment, threats, and intimidation of its staff, including the January 2023 arrests of Daniel Tesfaye, Bizuayehu Wendimu, Bereket Daniel, and Nahom Hussien, in the Alem Bank area of Addis Ababa while they investigated forced evictions. Despite a brief press freedom spring following Abiy’s ascent to power, Ethiopia has severely backslided, with over 200 journalists arrested, 59 in exile, and at least one killed since 2019 in a government drone strike. In 2025, Ethiopia ranked second to Eritrea among African countries with severe restrictions on journalists.
In addition, the regime seriously censors dissenting speech. It has politicized the media regulator, systematically harassed journalists, and blocked critical reporting. The controversial 2025 amendment to the 2021 Media Law placed the Ethiopian Media Authority (EMA) under the control of the regime, granting it expanded powers to arbitrarily sanction broadcasters, enforce pre-broadcast approval, and impose full legal liability on outlets for their live broadcasts. These powers have been instrumental in silencing critical coverage, systematically obstructing independent reporting, and criminalizing unsanctioned narratives. For example, in April 2025, authorities arrested at least seven independent journalists from the Ethiopian Broadcasting Service on baseless terrorism charges for broadcasting a documentary, while the EMA suspended the program that aired it, Addis Meiraf, and compelled the media owner to issue a public apology on the regime-controlled Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation. Additionally, the regime has imposed information blackouts and enforced pro-regime reporting. For example, since 2019, the regime has imposed information blackouts, including 26 internet shutdowns.
The regime seriously and unfairly repressed protests or gatherings. Protesters face arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention without trial, intimidation, and excessive use of force. For example, in May 2025, authorities forcefully responded to a rare, peaceful nationwide strike by health workers, arresting over 212 professionals who were detained without trial or due process. In August 2020, the regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters, triggered by the unsolved assassination of popular musician Hachalu Hundessa, resulted in at least 239 deaths and the incommunicado detention of over 9,000 protesters.
In Ethiopia, institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime, allowing it to significantly undermine electoral competition, repress criticism, or retaliate against dissent and dismantle accountability mechanisms. The regime has undermined independent judicial oversight by using the executive branch and the legislature, which is dominated by the ruling party, to control judicial appointments and removals, thereby placing the judiciary under executive administrative authority.
Courts, to some extent, fail to check the regime’s attempts to significantly undermine electoral competition. While courts can adjudicate procedural election disputes, the interpretation of constitutional rights, such as the legality of electoral laws, falls outside their authority. Instead, the House of Federation (HoF), a political body controlled by the ruling party, and the Council of Constitutional Inquiry (CCI), its advisory body, have that power. Consequently, the courts are confined to procedural election disputes, with constitutional electoral irregularities left to the HoF. For example, in 2021, the Federal Supreme Court ruled that jailed opposition leader Eskinder Nega was eligible to run, and the Federal High Court successfully ordered the election board to reprint ballots to include him, but the courts were unable to intervene in the regime’s repeated election delays, deferring instead to the HoF, which approved the delays without judicial scrutiny.
Furthermore, courts unfairly fail to check, or enable, the regime’s attempts to repress criticism. Although courts occasionally uphold procedural rights, such as granting bail to detained journalists, opposition leaders, and civil society actors, regime authorities often undermine these rulings, thereby reducing judicial authority to mere symbolism, especially in politically sensitive cases. For example, in June 2025, Tesfalem Woldeyes, editor of Ethiopia Insider, was arrested for “disseminating false information,” and despite two court rulings ordering his release, authorities refused to comply. Similarly, during the 2020 crackdown, authorities ignored several Federal High Court bail orders, re-arresting detainees and holding them incommunicado without charge. Nevertheless, in several instances, the courts routinely upheld pretextual charges wielded by the regime to silence dissent. In May 2025, journalist Ahmed Awga was sentenced to two years by the Fafen Zone High Court for a Facebook post he did not author, and in June, the Federal High Court sentenced Wondimagegn Bergena to seven years for allegedly “defaming the government” on social media.
Members of the judicial branch who act contrary to the regime’s interest or who are perceived as a threat by the regime frequently face retaliation. Detention without due process, removal from office, harassment, and coercion of judges to reverse rulings are more prevalent in regional courts, where retaliation is more frequent than at the federal level. For example, between the last quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, 89 judges resigned due to security and salary issues, such as arbitrary detention, intimidation by regional security forces, and violence linked to armed non-state actors in conflict-affected regions. In 2024 alone, 35 judges from the Amhara region were arbitrarily arrested in direct retaliation for their judicial work.
Judicial, legislative, and executive institutions frequently and unfairly fail to hold regime officials accountable. The ruling party dominates the legislative function, reducing it to a rubber-stamp for the regime’s decisions, while the courts are weakened by constitutional constraints and the routine disregard of their rulings. For example, in mid-2020, lawmakers extended Prime Minister Abiy’s term beyond its constitutional limit, a move that critics denounced as an unconstitutional power grab.
The regime has subjected independent institutions to reforms that seriously weaken their independence. It has weakened legislative oversight of approval and appointment processes, consolidating excessive power in the Prime Minister’s Office. For example, in April 2025, through controversial amendments to the Media Law, the regime stripped Parliament of its oversight role and brought the media regulator under executive control by transferring the appointment of its director from an open parliamentary process to the Prime Minister’s office. The removal of transparency safeguards allowed ruling party affiliates to dominate the EMA board, as previous bans on political party members were scrapped.
