The Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Amhara Democratic Party, two of the four parties in Ethiopia’s ruling EPRDF coalition, traded insults this week over the failed 22 June regional coup, Reuters reported.
Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen, the ADP chairman, with UNESCO deputy director-general Getachew Engida, February 2014 (Mulugeta Ayene, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO) [file photo]
Analysts described the exchange as among the most serious disputes yet inside the coalition, which has held power since 1991 and tolerated little dissent until Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018 and opened up politics.
The authorities blamed the 22 June attempt to seize power in the Amhara region on Asamnew Tsige, a rogue ADP member who was killed on the outskirts of Bahir Dar. The TPLF has accused the ADP of standing by while Asamnew trained and armed a militia before the uprising, and of failing to denounce him since. “The TPLF would have difficulty working with its so-called sister party, which hasn’t even dared to stare the killer in the eye,” Getachew Reda, a TPLF executive member and former national communications minister, told Reuters.
The ADP answered in a statement that the TPLF was “responsible for the current political crisis in the country” and had “no moral or practical ground to consider itself as the only guardian of Ethiopia.” It gave no further details.
The quarrel sharpened after the ADP chairman, Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen, said an unidentified third group was behind the June uprising, remarks the TPLF saw as an attempt to avoid blame. “How would I feel comfortable sitting next to Demeke while his remarks are flying in the face of reality?” Getachew said.
After a central committee meeting that ended on 9 July, the TPLF also called for constitutional answers to the statehood demands spreading in the Southern region and said that “any effort to quash public interests by use of force is not acceptable,” The Reporter reported.
Abiy Ahmed’s reforms have allowed long-held grievances to resurface and have emboldened local power brokers seeking more power and territory for their ethnic groups. The unrest has already forced the government to postpone the national census and raised doubts over whether the 2020 election will be held on time. Each coalition party faces newer, more strident rivals at home, analysts told Reuters. “It will be difficult for the ruling coalition to maintain its current status ahead of the upcoming election,” said Mulugeta Aregawi, a lecturer at Addis Ababa University’s School of Law.
William Davison of the International Crisis Group said a break-up of the coalition “would leave a major power vacuum,” but that it still appeared unlikely for now, “since all actors have too much to lose.”
Sources: Euronews (Reuters), The Reporter