The politics of Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in Ethiopia, starting from its creation to the formation of Ethiopian people’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and then subsequently, it had evolved in a number of ways to promote its ethnic based ideology in the country. It is well known that TPLF was created in 1976, by small number of undergraduates, for the purpose of liberating only the people of one region of Ethiopia, Tigray, under the influence of Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). TPLF sought to form self-administration ‘baito’ in 1980 under its control area. However, in 1984 TPLF forwarded a proposal, with a minimum program, for the formation of united front to overthrow the Derg regime.
In 1989 TPLF entered alliance with other political parties, primarily with Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement (EPDM) to create EPRDF; its charter was directly borrowed from TPLF charter. Nowadays the real political power in Ethiopia is held by TPLF and it promotes its own ideology being camouflaged within EPRDF. Ethiopian ruling party, TPLF/ EPRDF, shows obvious social and political intolerance, ethnic discrimination, detention and disappearance of people, judicial killing, absence of due process of law, Ethnic discrimination, corruption, freedom of press suppression, etc in Ethiopia against international and regional human rights conventions; the insolvent ethnic policies of TPLF/ EPRDF led the country in to a fragile situation.
To restore peace, maintain social stability and achieve sustainable economic growth in Ethiopia there should be a political system by which problems can be addressed promptly. I believe that well established democratic institutions along with proper managemental systems, which are transparent, fair and accountable, are the main solutions for the on going crises of the country. To do that, above all, it is unquestionable to have a government elected by the people, a government that collaborate with other opposition political parties to work together and willing to put first the interests of the people rather than its own corrupted policies against the wishes of its people.
As a matter of fact, with elected representatives and elective government objective laws can be governed through in the context of democracy; the rule of state by its citizens will prevail. However in Ethiopia, as it has been clearly seen over the last fourteen years, the ruling party -TPLF/ EPRDF-is not willing to create a real democracy. Even though, three general elections (1995, 2000 and recently 15 May 2005) have been held in Ethiopia since TPLF/ EPRDF came in to power (1991); none of the elections was genuine, fair and free from sabotages at all. The current government deprives the people of Ethiopia to exercise freedom to criticise the government, to put forward their criticism and to present alternatives.
As it had been done in the past two parliamentary elections (1995 and 2000) now again in Ethiopia’s third parliamentary election (15 May 2005) TPLT/ EPRDF is gearing up with more sophisticated strategies than ever before to change the result of people votes through vote rigging, fraud, tampering of ballet boxes, use of military forces and claiming victory in the absence of any results have been disclosed to the public by the National Election Board; as per authoritarian regimes give false sense of democracy.
To make a difference, all Ethiopians people at every level of public life need to involve in decisions that affects their lives; there should be a government that provides a means to assure its citizens able to choose their leaders and representatives in regular free and fair elections. Political power and governance institutions need to serve the public interests in the ongoing struggle to articulate and represent their needs along with the rule of law, transparency, accountability and conflict resolution mechanisms.
