Saturday, February 29, 2020

Prosperity Party to Open Branches in All Areas of Tigray
Prosperity Party intents to exercise constitutional right, as a recognized national party, to open zone and district level offices in Tigray region of Ethiopia. TPLF is silent about it.

Awolu Abdi, Prosperity Party’s Public Relation and International Relation Head. Photo : From Prosperity Party social media page

Borkena
February 28, 2020

Prosperity Party said on Friday that it would open district level branch offices in all areas of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. 

The Party’s Public Relations and International Relations Head, Awolu Abdi,  told Addis Zemen newspaper that as a national party, as opposed to a regional one, Prosperity Party (PP) will open branches in all zones, districts, and kebeles of the Tigray region.

He claimed that PP has a considerable number of supporters in the region, and over half of those within the TPLF party are also supporters of his party.

“Prosperity Party is a party of change that is born out of popular disenchantment, and that it is inclusive, ”  he said.

Awolu also called those who are opposing PP in Tigray as “minorities.”

“Those forces intimidate the people with a point of a gun going house to house, but the people [in the region] will not accept them. Because people in Tigray are also supporters of the party and the change,” he claimed.

For him, PP is working on “genuine federalism” by rectifying mistakes that the EPRDF coalition made.

However, other local sources cited Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)’s public relations officer, Getachew Reda, to report that authorities in the region ( which means TPLF) do not know anything about the opening of PP branches in the region. 

TPLF declined to join PP when three former EPRDF coalition member parties and five other support parties merged to form it in November 2019 under the leadership of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Back then, TPLF condemned the move as illegal, arguing that it violated the constitution. TPLF also claimed that abandoning “revolutionary democracy” – an ideology which the former ruling coalition adhered to for over 27 years – undesirable.

After PP and TPLF parted their ways, there have been political bickerings; even confrontations. This week, Debretison Gebremichael disclosed in Mekelle that Federal Security Forces who were sent on a mission to the region were besieged soon after the plane that carried them touched down at At Alula Aba Nega Airport in Mekelle (borkena reported about it at the time ). In that act, TPLF demonstrated rebellion over the Federal government. 

The difference between the Federal government and the Tigray regional government, Debretison said a few weeks ago, is widening. National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) decided that TPLF and Prosperity party share wealth proportionally after settling debts.

As it turns out, the hostility between the two seems to have changed. Capital, a local newspaper, reported this week that TPLF and Prosperity Party have already formed a committee to discuss a “way forward.

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