Ethiopian prime minister quits after mass protests

In a bid to ease tensions, the government last month began issuing a string of pardons and prisoner releases, after Hailemariam said jailed “politicians” would be freed “to improve the national consensus and widen the democratic platform”.

Earlier this week, men wielding sticks and stones blocked roads around the capital and the Oromia region, which has been at the centre of the protest movement, in a two-day strike to push for more prisoner releases.

The developments have caused the elite in the military and intelligence services to lose confidence in Hailemariam, Hallelujah said, while the regional governments at the centre of the protests — Oromia and Amhara — have increasingly shrugged off federal government control.

“He is unable to control the party and he is unable to control the government, and I think it is the right decision that he resigned,” Hallelujah said.

In a country long dominated by its major ethnic groups — most recently the Tigray, the ethnic group to which Meles belonged — Hailemariam comes from the minority Wolayta people in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region.

He was also the first Protestant to lead Ethiopia, where the majority of Christians follow Orthodox traditions.