Electoral Board rejects request by (a) TPLF
and war reconstruction underway
Hi everyone,
I’m currently going through an interesting report on Ethiopian refugees and migrants, ‘traveling east out of Ethiopia via irregular overland journeys towards Saudi Arabia for labor employment.’ For those of us living here in Ethiopia, this is an issue we are familiar with and for some of us a story of someone we know. The report was recommended to me by a friend (and subscriber) and I will be sharing the main highlights of the report with you in the coming editions.
That said, if you have any tips or suggestions on issues you would like to see me cover here, just hit the reply button and let me know.
Now, to the news.
Politics: Electoral Board rejects request by (a) TPLF
About a month ago, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) requested the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia to give it legal recognition once again as a political party (now that the war was over and there was a peace agreement between its forces and the Ethiopian government). You can go here to read more on that.
The Board’s response at the time was that it didn’t have the legal framework to do that after it had delisted the TPLF due to trying to overthrow the government. The Board, instead directed the TPLF to register as a new party, i.e., start from scratch in order to be in the running for next year’s election in Tigray region.
Last week the Board said it received a request for the registration of a political party based in Tigray named the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The request was made by four individuals and it was rejected by the Board because it said:
“The designation of any political party shall not be similar to or create confusion with the designation of another political party and shall be the sole designation of the party”.
The full story on Addis Standard here.
On a related note, here’s an analysis piece by Ethiopia Insight on the effects of removing TPLF from upcoming elections and how that might impact the peace process in the country.
AID: food aid diversion in Tigray (II)
This is an update from last week’s news on the suspension of aid food to Tigray Region by USAID and the UN. After a review, aid partners found what turned out to be a coordinated (and criminal) diversion of donor-funded food in the region.
Last week, the Tigray interim administration, temporarily in charge of administering the region until next year’s election, said that it has identified 186 suspects and detained seven. No names were mentioned, not unlike another high-profile investigation that the Ethiopian government is undertaking with regard to human rights abuses in Tigray.
The report by the interim administration in Tigray said that Ethiopian federal government entities and Eritrean army forces were involved to a higher extent although it implicated regional authorities from Tigray, aid workers, and IDP camp coordinators as well.
The story on Capital Newspaper here and Addis Standard here.
Reconstruction: UN is working on rebuilding war-torn areas
The material and economic damage of the two-year war in Ethiopia is around 28.7 billion dollars. In order to rebuild back from this, the Ethiopian government has crafted a 20-billion-dollar five-year plan. The Ethiopia Recovery and Reconstruction Program, as it is known, was introduced last week to development partners according to a story by The Reporter.
For now, the UN is getting ready to launch a 2.4 billion dollar program to provide ‘short-term solutions’, in Tigray, Afar, and Amhara Region.
The plan includes the demobilization of ex-combatants, which is expensive work. If you remember, the National Rehabilitation Commission had said it needed 555 million dollars to disarm and reintegrate 250,000 ex-combatants back in April. If you want to know more about this, go here.
The full story on The Reporter, here.
Culture: Fendika in danger
Anyone who has lived in – or even visited I daresay - Addis will probably know about Fendika Cultural Center. It’s the only place in the city where Mondays are actually considered a good day. They have live Ethiopian jazz, traditional Ethiopian music and dance among many other cultural and artistic works of art.
Last week, Fendika’s founder, Melaku Belay, sent out a post saying the city administration was planning to demolish Fendika to make way for a development project, not unlike what has happened to many of the old spots around Kazanchis.
Here's an excerpt from a story in Addis Fortune:
“The Casanchis area, Zewditu Street, where Fendika Cultural Centre resides, has been a bastion of live traditional music and art for decades, in spaces known as Azmari bets. The last of these, Duduye, closed over 15 years ago.”
They’re now coming for Fendika.
Check out the story in Addis Fortune here and sign the petition for preserving Fendika here.
On a final note, I spoke with representatives of the Oromo Federalist Congress, an opposition political party, about how the enforced disappearance (carried out by the government) is affecting their members. Read my story for VOA here.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
In the meantime, you can help support my work by forwarding this email to friends and family who might benefit from keeping up with what’s going on.
Note: I go through all the major news outlets, newspapers, online publications, and will at times, include reports, notes on parliamentary sessions, and go through fact-checking websites as well. I try to provide links to both English and Amharic sources, and I usually time-stamp the video I link to unless I think the whole video is relevant.