March 19 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (TPLF) has proposed to the Ethiopian Government the nomination of its spokesman and member of the Executive of the formation, Getachew Reda, as president of the Tigray region, under the peace agreement between both sides that returns to the group part of its government powers in this territory in the north of the country after two years of extremely violent armed conflict.
Getachew was nominated late on Saturday after receiving 18 of the TPLF’s central committee’s 41 votes, according to the ‘Addis Standard’, which sources close to the vote perceive as a second option behind the group leader and commander of the organization’s forces during the conflict, Debretsion Gebremichael, whose nomination the Ethiopian government considers unacceptable.
If the Ethiopian government admits Getachew — a figure the United States welcomes, especially after the positive meeting the spokesman had this week with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his visit to the country African –, would become the president of the so-called Regional Acting Administration of Tigray, a new government body agreed upon in the peace agreement in Pretoria (South Africa) in November last year.
This new administration, dependent on the Ethiopian Government but with certain powers of autonomy, has as its main objective the consolidation of supply routes to facilitate the arrival of humanitarian aid to the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the conflict that shook the north of the country for two years. country, one of the bloodiest in the history of the continent, which would have left between 100,000 and 600,000 dead, according to unofficial estimates by Ethiopian officials and the African Union, respectively.
The conflict in Tigray erupted in November 2020 after a TPLF attack on the main army base, located in Mekelle, after which the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered an offensive against the group.
The outbreak of the fighting came after months of tensions at the political and administrative level, including the TPLF’s refusal to recognize an electoral postponement and its decision to hold regional elections on the sidelines of Addis Ababa.
The TPLF accused Abiy of stoking tensions since he came to power in April 2018, when he became the first Oromo to take office. Until then, the TPLF had been the dominant force within the coalition that has ruled Ethiopia since 1991, the ethnically based Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The group opposed Abiy’s reforms, which it viewed as an attempt to undermine his influence.
