The ruling party in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region reconstituted a parliament that had been disbanded as part of a postwar accord in 2022.
The move threatens to raise tensions between regional adversaries in a country that is still recovering from a civil war that stymied attempts to liberalize one of Africa’s biggest economies.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front announced the decision in a Facebook post on Sunday, accusing the federal government led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of extending the tenure of the region’s interim administrator without consultation. The parliament in question existed before the war between government troops and the TPLF began in 2020.
Ethiopia’s two-year civil war in the Tigray region led to the deaths of about 600,000 people. The end of the conflict eased the violence, but a power struggle has continued between the TPLF and Abiy’s deputies in the region. Getachew Reda, a top adviser to the prime minister and a former administrator of the Tigray region, said the TPLF’s latest move is “a clear repudiation of the fragile post-conflict arrangement.”
