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🇪🇹 Ethiopia: Politics & Democracy

By V-Dem's measure, no — Ethiopia scores 10.0 on the 0–100 liberal democracy index, which places it firmly in the autocratic range.

Liberal democracy rank (2025)

#145 of 179

Score (0–100)

10.0

10-year change

−0.2

Full rankings →

Current leaders

Taye Atske Selassie

Head of State

since 2024-10-07

Abiy Ahmed

Head of Government · Prosperity Party

since 2018-04-01

Democracy trend

05010019002025
Ethiopia — V-Dem liberal democracy index, 1900–2025 (0–100 scale). Latest: 10.0 in 2025.

Voting alignment

Ethiopia's closest UN General Assembly voting partners since 1946:

Frequently asked questions

Is Ethiopia a democracy?

By V-Dem's measure, no — Ethiopia scores 10.0 on the 0–100 liberal democracy index, which places it firmly in the autocratic range. It ranks #145 of 179 countries in 2025.

Is democracy in Ethiopia improving or declining?

Ethiopia's V-Dem liberal democracy score has declined by 0.2 points over the past decade, standing at 10.0 in 2025 (1-year change: +0.7).

Who leads Ethiopia?

Taye Atske Selassie is Ethiopia's head of state; Abiy Ahmed serves as head of government (Prosperity Party).

More on Ethiopia

Data source: Coppedge, Michael et al. 'V-Dem Country-Year Dataset v15', Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, https://www.v-dem.net, CC BY 4.0.