Coalition of Ethiopian Federalist Forces
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Coalition of Ethiopian Federalist Forces የኢትዮጵያ ፌዴራሊስት ኃይሎች ጥምረት | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Leader | Dereje Bekele |
| Founded | 2019 |
| Dissolved | 2020 |
| Succeeded by | United Front of Ethiopian Federalist and Confederalist Forces |
| Headquarters | Mekelle |
| Ideology | Ethnic federalism Revolutionary democracy |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| Member parties | TPLF (before 2020) Teranafit |
The Coalition of Ethiopian Federalist Forces (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ፌዴራሊስት ኃይሎች ጥምረት) was a coalition of Ethiopian political parties from 2019 to 2020 that included the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the former ruling party that lost power in 2018.[1][2][3]
In August 2019, the former dominant political party in Ethiopia, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), that lost power in 2018, proposed creating a new ethno-federalist alliance. According to René Lefort and William Davison writing in Ethiopian Insight, the TPLF was likely to have difficulty creating an ethno-federalist alliance because it was "reviled from all parts of the Ethiopian political spectrum as the party that either created a despised ethnic federalism to divide-and-rule in its narrow ethnocentric interests, or the control-freaks that refused to allow true multinational federalism to breathe through its authoritarian blanket."[4]
During 3–4 December 2019, the TPLF organised the second of two forums for "rescuing the constitution and multi-ethnic Federal System" in Mekelle. Borkena described the attendance as "not great". The coordinator of the forum, Mulugeta, stated that fifty national and ethnic-based parties and 700 prominent individuals attended the forum.[5]
Creation
The Coalition of Ethiopian Federalist Forces was created in Mekelle.[1] On 14 May 2020, when the general election scheduled for August 2020 was delayed by the federal government due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Coalition held a meeting in Addis Ababa and stated that it supported the decision, while the TPLF opposed the decision.[6]
On 25 June, at the Coalition's fourth meeting, in Addis Ababa, the Coalition decided to dismiss the TPLF[2] and the Ethiopian Democratic Union if they missed any more meetings. Reasons cited for dismissing the two parties included: "dividing the members of the coalition and creating pressure"; "exploiting the coalition as a means to [destabilise] the country"; "missing meetings and insisting that meetings must take place in Mekelle"; and TPLF's decision to hold the 2020 Tigray regional election.[1]
