According to the Tigray regional government since Monday, the government of Addis Ababa is unconstitutional. October 5 should have marked the start of the new term in the federal parliament, but the election was postponed. The state of Tigray therefore wants a transitional government pending the vote.
Getachew Reda is a member of the executive committee of the TPLF, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, which runs the region. According to him, from Monday there will be no more federal government, that is, no more representation chamber, federation chamber, prime minister, cabinet. They no longer exist. ”
Opposition to the Prime Minister’s plans
With this fixed position, what do the Tigray authorities want? They want a transitional government until the parliamentary elections. An interim government tasked with bringing everyone around a table. “The stalemate in which the country finds itself cannot be resolved without the implementation of an inclusive national dialogue in which key political actors could discuss ways to break out of this dead end,” adds Getachew Reda.
From Mekele, Tigray’s regional capital, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s political project is too centralizing. Currently, the federal constitution provides considerable leeway for the ten regional states. Researcher Kjetil Tronvoll explains that it is the Prime Minister’s actions that concern the regional power in Tigray: “The TPLF and the people of Tigray believe that Abiy has such an agenda. The way he established the Prosperity Party as a Unitarian party, the way he communicates, the clues he gave about possible constitutional changes … all of this made Tigray particularly nervous. ”
How to ease tensions?
In the current state of the blockade, the academic expects demonstrations in the coming weeks to put pressure on the federal government. And according to the think tank Crisis Group, it could even escalate. Everyone must do their part, especially William Davison, an analyst specializing in Ethiopia within the organization: “There is an absolute need to negotiate here. The first thing is to remove the obstacles, all these preconditions that each party sets before negotiating. ”
William Davison, analyst at Crisis Group on solutions to tensions between the federal state and the Tigray region
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