The video is AI-generated.
A video circulating on Facebook claiming to show Ethiopian government forces compelling voters to cast ballots for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in the 7th General Election in 2026 is FAKE.
The post accompanying the footage asserts that “Ethiopia vote 2026 Abiy Ahmed Ali is threatening to use weapons to force people to vote for him in the 2026 elections arrested many peoples, he is war criminal.” Additionally, the Amharic text embedded within the video reads, “Ethiopian Election 2018 E.C”.
A campaign poster featuring the Prime Minister’s face with the slogan “VOTE FOR THE GOVERNMENT” is also visible right next to the ballot box.
Similarly, this post has been shared across multiple Facebook pages to drive engagement, as shown here and here.
Currently, the National Election Board of Ethiopia is executing various preparatory phases for the 7th General Election, which is scheduled to take place on 1 June 2026.
Our investigation confirms that the viral video is entirely fabricated. While it looks convincing at first glance, a closer analysis reveals it is an AI-generated deepfake filled with clear digital anomalies.
For instance, the emotions on the subjects’ faces are mechanical, instantly snapping from crying to terror, while their lip movements are completely unnatural. The physical actions are equally distorted; when the soldier aggressively pushes the women toward the ballot box, his movements look choppy and robotic, while the fabric of their clothing weirdly warps and blurs as they move.
Similarly, the specific AI red flags in the footage are spatial clipping and character distortion. The voting cards fail to function as solid objects and visibly clip directly through the fingers of the subjects. Additionally, the text on the walls and booths represents another technical failure of generative models. Instead of authentic Amharic script, the characters are rendered as scrambled, meaningless shapes, which occurs when AI video generators fail to replicate regional typography. These two technical indicators clipping and distorted lettering confirm the footage is synthetically generated.
Google reverse image search, Yandex, and TinEye, confirms that the footage was not published in any credible media.
Menahria Radio 99.1 ran a keyframe screenshot of the video, which was processed through the AI detector tool, Hive Moderation. And found that the video is 97.9 per cent likely to be AI-generated or deepfake material.
Additionally, from a regulatory standpoint, the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) strictly prohibits any political party branding, candidate posters, or campaign materials inside active polling stations. The presence of a prominent campaign poster directly adjacent to the ballot box violates standard NEBE operating procedures, further proving that the scene was entirely fabricated.
Menahria Radio 99.1 examined a Facebook video allegedly showing an Ethiopian soldier forcing citizens to vote for the ruling party and found it to be FAKE.
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This fact-check was produced by Getahun Asnake a Journalist at Menahria Radio 99.1 as part of the African Fact-Checking Alliance’s (AFCA) incubation programme. It was produced with peer-mentorship from Code for Africa’s fact-checking initiative, PesaCheck, with financial support from Norway. AFCA mentorship respects the journalistic independence of the researchers, offering access to advanced techniques and tools. Editorial decision-making remains with Addis Powerhouse . Want to learn more? Visit: https://factcheck.africa/
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