Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front

• Meles Legesse Zenawi Asres (8 May 1988 – 20 August 2012)
• Hailemariam Desalegn Boshe (16 September 2012 – 27 March 2018)
• Abiy Ahmed Ali (27 March 2018 – 1 December 2019)

Revolutionary democracy replaced Marxism–Leninism as the EPRDF's official ideology in the early 1990s, not because the front had lost their belief in Marxism, but rather because of the international situation (the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991).[12] The main message of Revolutionary Democracy, similar to that found in Marxist–Leninist thought, is that a vanguard party should rule because it represents the people and has "supposedly superior knowledge of the nature of social development conferred on them by the EPRDF ideology."[13] Similar to Marxism–Leninism, the EPRDF prefers to categorize society into classes such as the peasantry, the bourgeoisie, the proletariat and the comprador bourgeoisie and considers its main adversary to be imperialism, that is free market capitalist states.[13]

The peasantry are considered the main class in Ethiopia, since they form a majority of the population, and they are considered the pillar of Revolutionary Democracy.[14] Upon seizing power, the front was suspicious of the petite bourgeoisie class, believing that they were naturally inclined to oppose the front's policies.[15] Despite this, the front believed it could win over the petite bourgeoisie through economic incentives and successful policy.[15] Importantly, if members of the petite bourgeoisie class oppose the EPRDF, the front will "empty their 'belly and pocket'".[16] The urban proletariat are in contrast naturally inclined towards the EPRDF, and the EPRDF seeks to recruit members of these class so as to strengthen the front's organizational links with the trade unions.[16] The EPRDF asserts that the "local investor", that is, the capitalist, will naturally be hostile towards the front and its policies, and the front should therefore try to persuade this class to become neutral.[16] Religious organizations are deemed reactionary by the EPRDF.[17]

Some people state that the EPRDF has not espoused a well-defined unified ideology or political philosophy. Its members held a variety of positions that could be broadly defined as being to the left of the opposition parties.[4] The EPRDF traditionally identified itself with a number of general goals, namely rapid export-based economic growth; close cooperation with the United States in foreign and defense policies; close cooperation with China on economic and trade policies: and several newer issues, such as administrative reform. Administrative reform encompassed several themes, namely simplification and streamlining of government bureaucracy; privatization of state-owned enterprises; and adoption of measures, including tax reform, in preparation for the expected strain on the economy posed by a rapidly growing population.[18] Other priorities in the early 1990s included the promotion of a more active and positive role for Ethiopia following the collapse of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the internationalization of Ethiopia's economy by the liberalization and promotion of domestic demand (expected to lead to the industrialization) and the promotion of education.[18] A business-inspired commitment to free enterprise was tempered by the insistence of protectionism and tariffs.

The EPRDF opposes liberal democracy, and liberalism in general.[19] Despite this, Revolutionary Democracy can be considered a mixture of communist and liberal thought.[19] The front views liberal democracy and free market capitalism as decadent, and has a "romantic attachment" to the beliefs of Vladimir Lenin, who condemned liberal democracy as the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (literally the dictatorship of the upper class) while supporting Lenin's assertion of the need for a vanguard party which practices democratic centralism.[19] It considers liberal democracy to be "ill-fit and unsustainable", but ironically much of the front's economic policies are based on the tacit acknowledgement of the need of some liberalism in the economic field.[19]

With the majority of EPRDF's top leaders being former members of the Marxist–Leninist League of Tigray, a Hoxhaist organization led by among others Meles Zenawi, Marxist ideology still plays a prominent role in party discourse, with some even claiming that the front is hiding their ideology.[20] Theodore M. Vestal claims that the front based its ideology on Marxist–Leninist revisionism, believing it explains the regime's authoritarian nature.[21] Of the communists traits in Revolutionary Democracy, most of them have been borrowed from Mao Zedong Thought, an ideology conceived by Chinese leader Mao Zedong.[19]