Ethiopia’s flawed elections risk dividing the country further

KHALID JEMAL, a merchant from the western Ethiopian town of Agaro, is no stranger to elections. The poll on June 21st will be his fourth as an opposition candidate—and, barring divine intervention, his fourth successive defeat. Since 2010, when the ruling party and its allies won all but two parliamentary seats, Khalid has had the misfortune of standing against Abiy Ahmed, then an up-and-coming party man and now the prime minister. “I’m proud he’s from here and I respect him,” he told The Economist in an interview held not in his office, but in one belonging to the ruling Prosperity Party—and with an attentive official of that party taking notes.