Friday, 14-02-2025 {HMC} – Officials from Ethiopia’s National Electoral Board announced on Thursday that they had suspended the membership of the once-ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) due to violations of a political agreement made two years after the devastating Tigray war.
The TPLF, which was added to the list of terrorist organizations during the 2020-2022 conflict, was later re-recognized as a political party after the war ended.
The 2024 agreement mandated that the TPLF hold an official election to choose new leadership before February 10 of this year.
The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia stated in a post on its social media account that the party failed to meet this requirement, which was considered a direct violation of the agreement.
“The party is prohibited from engaging in any political activities for three months,” the statement read. “The party’s registration will be revoked if it does not take corrective actions within this period,” it added.
Getachew Reda, a senior leader of the TPLF, did not respond to a request for comment from AFP.
The TPLF ruled Ethiopia for nearly 30 years until Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who is not from the Tigray ethnic group, took power in 2018. Abiy’s rise to power sparked growing tensions, which eventually led to the two-year war between the federal government and Tigray forces in 2020, a conflict estimated to have claimed over 600,000 lives.
New tensions have now emerged within the TPLF, particularly between Getachew, who led the interim Tigray administration appointed by Addis Ababa after the war, and Debretsion Gebremichael, the longtime leader of the party.
The ACLED organization, a non-governmental body that tracks global conflict-related losses, warned weeks ago that these tensions could escalate into further violence.
