Ethiopian Party Seeks New Alliances After Rejecting Prime Minister’s Unity Party
Ethiopian Party Seeks New Alliances After Rejecting Prime Minister’s Unity Party
A leading member of Ethiopia’s former ruling coalition is seeking fresh alliances after it rejected Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s new unity party ahead of elections this year.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front, TPLF, said the Prosperity Party, which set out to merge members of the now defunct Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, poses a “clear difference of purpose.” The new formation has eight parties including three members of the EPRDF, formerly a TPLF-controlled rebel group that governed Ethiopia since Mengistu Haile Mariam’s Marxist regime was overthrown in 1991.
The unity party as part of Abiy-led reforms in Ethiopia envisions fair representation of the Horn of Africa country’s ethnic groups.
The TPLF leadership is considering strategic relationships with other “federalist forces as a forum, coalition or a front,” it said in a statement on its Facebook page after a meeting on Sunday.
To contact the reporter on this story: Samuel Gebre in Abidjan at sgebre@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Malingha at dmalingha@bloomberg.net, Helen Nyambura
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