Gambella is once again watching Ethiopia’s political crisis from a difficult position. Renewed fighting in northern Ethiopia, including Tigray and neighbouring Afar, has come only days after seven armed and opposition groups announced a coalition seeking to remove Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and establish a transitional administration.

The coalition brings together the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), Amhara Fano National Movement, Ogaden National Liberation Front, Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front, Benishangul Peoples’ Liberation Movement and Gumuz Peoples’ Democratic Movement.

The timing is significant. Fighting has now intensified between federal forces and Tigrayan forces, while clashes and military activity have also affected neighbouring Afar and Amhara areas.

Ethiopian Airlines suspended flights to Tigray after the escalation, while reports emerged of Tigrayan forces taking control of several airports and the district capital of Abala in Afar. The United Nations has called for restraint and a return to dialogue, warning that military action will not resolve Ethiopia’s underlying political differences.

For Gambella, however, the most important question is not simply who is winning in the north. It is what kind of Ethiopia could emerge if the current confrontation expands.

• Gambella caught between competing visions

The political argument now unfolding in Ethiopia can be understood through several competing visions of the country’s future.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Prosperity Party continue to present the federal government as the institution responsible for maintaining the territorial integrity of Ethiopia and managing the country as one state.

The armed groups opposing the government, meanwhile, argue that the existing political order has concentrated too much power at the centre and failed to resolve longstanding regional and political grievances.

Their new coalition says it wants to remove the current government and establish a transitional administration before a broader constitutional and political process.  But the seven groups are not a single ideological movement. Their histories, regional interests and political objectives are different. The TPLF and Fano, for example, fought on opposite sides during the 2020-2022 Tigray war.

The OLA has its own long-running conflict with the federal government, while the other coalition members represent different regional and political grievances.

Analysts have therefore questioned how easily these groups could transform their common opposition to Abiy’s government into a unified political project. That distinction matters for Gambella. It is tempting to divide Ethiopia into two camps, those fighting for a united Ethiopia and those supposedly fighting for independence.

The reality is more complicated. The present coalition itself speaks of a transitional government rather than announcing a single programme for dissolving Ethiopia into independent states.

What happens after such a transition, if it ever occurs, would depend on negotiations over the constitution, federalism, territory, political representation and the relationship between the federal government and the regions.

For Gambella, those questions are not abstract.

• What happens to Gambella if the centre weakens?

Gambella has historically depended heavily on the federal government for security, administration, infrastructure, humanitarian coordination and political support. At the same time, the region has repeatedly experienced tensions over local authority, inter-communal violence, displacement, armed groups and the relationship between regional and federal institutions.

A major weakening of the federal state could therefore create both opportunities and risks. On one hand, a weaker centre could give regional governments greater political space to determine their own affairs.

For a region such as Gambella, which has its own distinct political, cultural and geographic realities, stronger regional autonomy could be attractive if it comes through a negotiated constitutional process. On the other hand, a collapse or severe weakening of federal authority could expose peripheral regions to greater insecurity.

Gambella’s location on Ethiopia’s western border means that instability in neighbouring regions could have consequences for the movement of weapons, armed groups, refugees, trade and civilians.

A national political crisis that begins in the north would not necessarily remain a northern problem. This is where Gambella’s dilemma becomes particularly serious.

If Abiy’s government maintains a strong central state through military means, Gambella may retain a powerful federal security structure, but the continuation of armed conflicts elsewhere could keep Ethiopia under permanent political and economic pressure.

If the anti-government coalition succeeds in weakening or removing the current administration, Gambella could gain a new political opening, but nobody can guarantee what constitutional arrangement would follow, how regional boundaries would be treated, or whether the new political order would be more stable.

Neither scenario provides Gambella with certainty.

• The seven-group coalition is not automatically Gambella’s coalition.

The formation of the seven-group alliance has created a new political map across Ethiopia. But Gambella is not one of the seven members announced in September. That fact deserves attention.

The coalition includes movements from Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, Somali, Afar and Benishangul-Gumuz, among others.

Its geographical reach is therefore substantial. Yet geographical proximity does not automatically mean shared political interests. Gambella’s interests cannot simply be assumed to be identical to those of any other region.

A movement representing a large highland population may approach federalism differently from a movement representing a smaller border region. A region with a long history of political dominance at the national level may have different priorities from a region that has historically operated on the political margins.

For Gambella, the central questions should therefore be: Who protects regional autonomy? Who guarantees the security of civilians? Who respects existing regional boundaries? Who protects Gambella’s constitutional rights? And who provides a credible political mechanism for resolving disputes without another cycle of armed conflict?

Those questions should matter more than which national political camp happens to be gaining ground at a particular moment.

• Abiy’s model and the Gambella calculation

There is an argument that a strong federal government could serve Gambella’s interests because the region needs a functioning national state capable of providing security, protecting borders and financing national and regional development.

That argument has a factual basis worth considering, but it should not be confused with an endorsement of every policy of the current government.

A functioning federal state can provide a framework within which smaller regions retain constitutional recognition while benefiting from national institutions. For Gambella, national unity can mean continued access to federal security structures, infrastructure programmes, public institutions, national markets and humanitarian mechanisms.

But the opposite concern is equally important: national unity is most sustainable when regional populations believe that unity protects their rights rather than simply requiring obedience to the centre.

If federal authority becomes increasingly centralized without sufficient regional participation, the same political pressures driving armed opposition elsewhere could eventually deepen regional grievances in places that are not currently central to the national conflict.

For Gambella, therefore, the question should not simply be whether Ethiopia remains united. The deeper question is what kind of a United Ethiopia?

• The danger of another nationwide conflict

The greatest concern for Gambella may not be which political side ultimately prevails, but whether Ethiopia enters another prolonged period of fragmented warfare.

The country has already experienced the enormous human and economic consequences of the 2020-2022 Tigray war. The current escalation is occurring while armed conflicts and political tensions already exist in several regions. Reuters reported that analysts have questioned whether the seven coalition members can cooperate effectively because of their geographical separation, political differences and differing regional interests.

If those differences produce a wider war rather than a negotiated political transition, peripheral regions could face consequences even without becoming primary battlefields.

Food prices could rise. Transport routes could become less reliable. Government resources could be redirected toward military expenditure. Humanitarian needs could increase. Refugee movements could intensify. Federal institutions could become overstretched. Gambella knows what instability means. The region does not need another national crisis to prove that point.

• Gambella should avoid choosing blindly

There is a temptation in periods of political crisis for smaller regions to immediately choose whichever national side appears strongest or most promising.

That may be precisely what Gambella should avoid.

Gambella’s political leadership, civil society, intellectuals, traditional leaders and ordinary citizens need to examine every national political project through the interests of the region itself.

If the federal government promises Ethiopian unity, Gambella should ask how that unity will protect regional autonomy, security and political representation.

If opposition groups promise a new Ethiopia, Gambella should ask what constitutional arrangement they envision, how regional boundaries will be protected, how minority regions will be represented and what guarantees will exist for smaller states.

If a transitional government is proposed, Gambella should ask who will represent the region during that transition and whether Gambella will have a meaningful voice in constitutional negotiations. The answers matter more than slogans.

• The Gambellan question

The seven-group coalition has changed Ethiopia’s political equation. Renewed fighting in Tigray and Afar has made the situation even more urgent. But Gambella should not allow the national debate to force the region into a false choice between blindly supporting the federal government and blindly supporting armed opposition.

Gambella can defend Ethiopian unity while demanding stronger regional rights.

It can support federal institutions while demanding accountability.

It can reject armed political change without surrendering legitimate demands for political reform.

And it can insist that any future constitutional settlement must include the voices of smaller regions whose interests can easily be overshadowed by the country’s larger political and military actors.

For Gambella, the strategic objective should therefore be neither unconditional loyalty to Addis Ababa nor automatic alignment with armed opposition movements.

It should be the protection of Gambella’s people, territory, political voice, constitutional rights, economic interests and long-term security, regardless of which political arrangement eventually emerges in Ethiopia.

The current crisis may ultimately produce negotiations, another prolonged war, a political transition, or some combination of all three. At this stage, none of those outcomes can responsibly be predicted.

But one lesson is already clear: when Ethiopia’s major political actors redraw the country’s political map, Gambella cannot afford to be merely an observer. The region needs to know what it wants before others decide what place Gambella will have in the Ethiopia that follows.

This article was written by Pam Chuol Joack, a Gambella Vision Contributor and an Analyst on Gambella Affairs.