The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has been denied permission to reestablish its previous legal position by the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE). Instead, the TPLF has been granted a certificate of legal personality as a new political party under specific circumstances.
The decision was made in compliance with the modified Party Registration and Ethics Reform bill, which was enacted in May 2024 and has provisions for awarding legal registration to political groups with a history of violent activity, according to a statement released by NEBE on Friday, August 9, 2024.
The board declared that TPLF’s prior legal status could not be restored on any legal grounds.
The TPLF’s chairman, Debretsion Gebremichael (PhD), contested the amended bill on July 29, 2024, claiming it only permits illegal political parties to re-register as legal entities and does not meet his party’s demands for the restoration of its pre-war legal status.
He told a regional outlet, “We will never register as a new party. We have reached an agreement with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and other federal high level officials, including officials from NEBE, on our demands.”
However, Getachew Reda, the vice chairman of the party and president of the Tigray Interim Regional Administration, declared on Friday that he would not take part in the party’s next congress. He claimed that the ongoing efforts to organize a congress and the request made to the electoral board to restore the party’s legality are all “illegal movements by a group that doesnot represent the TPLF.”
Previously, on July 30, 2024, Getachew Reda published a harsh indictment of the TPLF leadership, charging them with pervasive corruption, poor administration, and endangering the IA’s ambitions as well as regional security.
The newly registered TPLF is required by NEBE to call a general assembly within six months to ratify its bylaws and leadership while being inspected by the election board, which will also keep an eye on the party’s operations to make sure that nonviolent behavior is adhered to.
Due to the TPLF’s involvement in “armed violence against the government,” the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) revoked the party’s formal registration in January 2021 and forbade TPLF officials from acting on the party’s behalf.
The Pretoria peace accord, which put an end to the two-year conflict, and the TPLF’s delisting from the terrorist list on March 22, 2018, did not change the electoral board’s stance, which stated that there was no legal basis to overturn the annulment.
The amended “Electoral, Political Parties Registration, and Electoral Ethics Proclamation” was ratified by the House of People’s Representatives (HoPR) in June. This action allowed political groups that had been outlawed for engaging in non-peaceful activities to regain legal status, provided that they pledged to operate peacefully and gave up on using violence.