Abiy painted himself as a westerner at odds with the more China-friendly, market-sceptical TPLF, which had previously dominated the government.

In a star turn at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he informed his audience that it was not possible to sustain economic growth without democracy.

With a flash of his winning smile, Abiy boasted that Ethiopia was now one of the few countries in Africa not to imprison reporters.

The audience broke into rapturous applause.

He could be extraordinarily charming.

When high-profile foreign visitors arrived in Addis Ababa, the prime minister would often meet them at the airport in his own 4x4, taking the steering wheel himself and driving them through the city for a guided tour of the palace and its surroundings.

Among those given the red-carpet treatment by Abiy in this way was David Beasley, a former Republican governor of South Carolina, who was then chief of the UN's World Food Programme.

The two had known each other for about a decade through the National Prayer Breakfast, an influential networking event in Washington run by the Fellowship Foundation, a Christian outfit known for its promotion of anti-LGBTQ activism both in Congress and in Africa.

Another admirer was former British prime minister Tony Blair, whose non-profit organisation, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, would be closely involved in steering some of the government's liberalising reforms.

"This is a remarkable leader," Blair told an audience in Addis Ababa in 2018.