A  TPLF faction boycott Congress as rift within the party deepens 

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Toronto – the political divide within the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) that manifested itself in the form of dispute over the organization’s 14th congress is heighted. 

Two major political groups are noticeable in the development in the past few weeks. One faction appears to be under Getachew Reda, who is the President of the Interim Regional Government in Tigray – which was installed in 2022 following an arrangement in the course of implementing the Pretoria agreement.  

He also served as a public relations and foreign relation during the war and he is the one who signed the Pretoria agreement representing TPLF. Figures like Kendeya Gebrehiwot, who served as president of Mekelle University, are in this group. A total of 14 central committee members are backing this faction. They allege that the other faction’s political moves are risking another war and that the region can not afford it in a number of ways. Head of the region’s Public Service and the region’s communication office head are also in this group. 

The other group is led by Debretsion Gebremichael who was president of the Tigray region when the TPLF attacked the Northern Command of the Ethiopian Defense Force – which triggered the two years bloody war. Debretsion is also chairman of the TPLF.  Fetelework Gebreegziabhier, one of the heavyweights within the organizations and a veteran TPLF combatant who served in the  TPLF for over 40 years, is supporting this faction.

Debretsion’s group planned to undertake a Party congress with the aim to elect new leaders for the organization including central committee members. It is scheduled to take place on August 13, 2024.  This faction also makes the claim that the party congress is necessary for the TPLF to “regain its legal status”, as it says, with Ethiopia’s National Electoral Board. The party was designated as a terrorist organization in May 2021. 

Getachew Reda’s action on the other hand does not want the party congress to take place in a way that the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia does not accept. His group also argues that stability has to be restored to the region first and displaced people have to return before the congress. There have been reports of lawlessness, kidnappings and other forms of crimes in the region after the Pretoria agreement which was signed in November 2022. 

On Saturdays, Getachew Reda wrote a letter to the Electoral Board protesting that the Board issued a certificate of registration for the TPLF under special conditions. It alleges that it was a group of individuals who submitted the request to the board with fraudulent documents and without the knowledge of all the central committee members.

On Sunday, 14 central committee members including Getachew Reda, released a statement saying that they will not take part in the party congress. 

The other faction seems to be facing another problem too. The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia will not accept the congress. According to the Board, political organizations are required to notify the Board 21 days before the congress for the congress to be considered legitimate. 

Debretsion’s group asserts that the organization does not need anyone’s blessings to undertake the party congress. 

The organization is said to have over 270,000 armed combatants. The division within the political class of the TPLF might reverberate within the armed combatants too. 

What would unfold in the next few days and weeks in the Tigray region is uncertain. 

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