The Ruling Party Claims Ten Million Members Amid Criticism Over Benishangul

Prosperity Party conducts evaluation meeting amid criticism over failure to stop recurring massacres of innocent civilians  in Benishangul Gumuz and Oromo regions of Ethiopia  

Borkena

January 15, 2021 

Ethiopian ruling party, Prosperity Party, claimed that the number of members and leadership at different levels has reached 10 million.

Fana Broadcasting Corporate (sate media) on Friday cited the Prosperity Party’s central audit and inspection commission to report that that party has 10 million members across the country — apparently including in the Tigray region of Ethiopia where there was a three weeks war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). 

“The work that was restricted to four region is now organized in all regions — which is creating an opportunity for unity of thought and action,” Commissioner Awoke is cited as saying. 

He said so at a  meeting at the Sheraton Addis on Friday that the party undertook  a six-month performance evaluation. 

It was in late November 2019 that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed established Prosperity Party by merging three former members of the now defunct Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPDRF) and five other support parties based in five different regions — Afar, Benishangul, Somali, Harari and Gambella regions. It was only TPLF that opted out of the merger on ideological and other political grounds — which is believed to be one of the key factors that ultimately led to war with the Federal government.  

The ethnic Oromo party that Abiy Ahmed led before the merger to form Prosperity Party is widely criticized for creating TPLF style dominance over the prosperity party. 

Critical political activists also accuse the party of masterminding the massacre of ethnic Amhara and ethnic Agaw in the Benishangul Gumuz region of Ethiopia the latest string of which happened earlier this week claiming at least 110 lives -mostly women and children. 

Before it became known that Prosperity Party is not much different from TPLF dominated era ethnic dominated system, which some refer to as apartheid, there was hope that it would unify the country and defend the rights of Ethiopians everywhere in the country. Reality on the ground is that it is worsening.

The party has not responded to the accusation which is being a dominant narrative on social media.