Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is not attending today’s council meeting for the first time in the history of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The office of TPLF wrote a letter of withdrawal a day before the council meeting.
“We don’t have legal status to dissolve TPLF with a pretext of ‘merging’,” says the letter. Additionally, it informs that the meetings of the executive committee and council of EPRDF could not decide over the merger. “The future of TPLF could be determined by the assembly of TPLF after a series of discussions at every level.”
TPLF had been opposing the merger, which is being enforced by prime minister Abiy Ahmed. Last week executive committee of EPRDF had voted to lead the merger proposal to be approved by its council.
Whereas according to the office of TPLF, the agenda of the meeting of the executive committee was hijacked. “That meeting was supposed to be a discussion over the study result of the merger,” says the letter. “But ignoring the agenda of the meeting, passed the decision to be merged, which is illegal.”
Despite the letter of TPLF, the meeting of the council of EPRDF is being held today, as planned in Addis Ababa. The council meeting consists of 45 representatives from each of the four-member parties of EPRDF.
The representatives of the three parties are having the meeting following the withdrawal of one of the founding members and the main actor of Ethiopian politics for the past 27 years.
