The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has unseated the interim government in Ethiopia’s northernmost region. Who are its leaders and what do they want?
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that Tigray would soon have a new regional president. This appeared to draw a line under a period of tension and uncertainty in Ethiopia since 13 March, when Tigrayan security forces seized control of several major towns, detained local officials and forced Getachew Reda, the region’s interim president, into exile.
“Taking into account the realities on the ground, [it has] become necessary to appoint a new president of the interim administration [of Tigray],” Abiy wrote in a statement published online. “It is the responsibility of the prime minister to appoint the president of the interim administration,” the statement added, before inviting “the entire people of Tigray” to submit “nominations of candidates whom you believe can efficiently perform the duties” to an email address managed by the prime minister’s office.
Getachew’s interim administration was established as part of the peace deal signed between Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which ended a devastating civil war centred on Tigray that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people between 2020 and 2022.
TPLF pushback
The prime minister’s statement drew a sharply worded response from the TPLF, the party that has dominated Tigrayan politics for more than three decades and was bitterly critical of Getachew’s administration before orchestrating its overthrow earlier this month.
“The Ethiopian government has long been engaged in provocative, hostile and destabilising activities that threaten the survival of the already deeply wounded people of Tigray,” the TPLF said.
It rejected that the prime minister had sole authority to appoint a replacement for Getachew, saying that under the terms of the peace deal, such an appointment would have to be agreed upon “through dialogue between the Ethiopian government and the TPLF”.
The TPLF said that Ethiopia’s federal government had agreed during bilateral negotiations last week to appoint the TPLF’s nominee – Tadesse Werede, head of the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF), the region’s de facto army – as the new interim president of Tigray.
Abiy’s soliciting nominations from the public for the position violated this prior agreement. “This move, which contravenes the [accord], is unacceptable.”
A hardline TPLF faction rises
The heated exchange underscores how a hardline faction of the TPLF, with the support of the TDF, seized control of much of Tigray earlier this month, returning to centre stage and taking a more confrontational line against Addis Ababa.
This faction, long sidelined by Getachew, had castigated his administration for what they characterised as its kow-towing to Abiy, arguing that Getachew had to press the federal government to make good on its promises to Tigray, such as the return of territories annexed by hostile forces during the civil war, and the disbursal of funds for reconstruction.
The TPLF’s leaders have promised a different approach. A secretive organisation with ideological roots in Marxism-Leninism, the party’s inner workings are largely opaque. While it is difficult to tell where the real power lies, four hard-nosed party stalwarts are believed to wield significant authority.
Veterans of the armed struggle against the Derg regime during the 1970s and 1980s, all four hark back to the period between 1991 and 2018 when the TPLF ruled the roost in Addis Ababa.
To their supporters, the hardliners are strong-willed defenders of the interests of the Tigrayan people. To their critics, they are ruthless and power hungry, willing to drag their people into another war to restore their lost authority.
1. Debretsion Gebremichael: the Boss (in theory)
Rising to prominence during the mid-2010s, Debretsion was elected chairman of the TPLF in 2017. Before that, he served as deputy prime minister of Ethiopia between 2016 and 2018, during the period when the TPLF dominated Ethiopia’s federal government.
Long interested in IT and communications, Debretsion was head of the TPLF’s guerilla radio station during the armed struggle. He later earned a PhD in information technology and served as minister for communications and information technology between 2012 and 2017.
While Debretsion has acquired a reputation as a fearsome strongman, he is known within the party as a somewhat hesitant decision-maker with a preference for compromise. “He is someone who doesn’t make up his mind about what he thinks until he knows what other people think,” says a close observer.
He is also considered more moderate than some of the party’s other heavy hitters, and some members of Ethiopia’s federal government are unconvinced that Debretsion is the one who calls the shots within the TPLF.
2. Fetlework ‘Monjorino’ Gebregziabher: Iron Lady
The only woman of the group, Fetlework is the TPLF’s deputy chair, and is considered to be one of the party’s most influential figures. She is widely known by the nickname ‘Monjorino’, the origins of which are obscure and appear to date back to her days as a guerilla fighter. She served as Ethiopia’s minister for trade and industry from 2018 until 2020, when she was removed from her post by Abiy.
Fetlework is also the former wife of Abay Tsehaye, a founding member of the TPLF and one of its ideological godfathers, who was killed in 2021 by the Ethiopian army during the civil war. Abay was an early mentor of Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s former prime minister.
“Fetlework has always been close to the centres of ideological decision-making and power through that connection,” says an observer. Seen as more hardline and confrontational than Debretsion, she was widely expected to become the TPLF’s chairperson in 2017. Debretsion’s victory was, at the time, considered a victory for moderate, reform-minded voices within the party.
3. Alem Gebrewahid: the Party-Man
Alem is a relatively obscure figure outside of Tigray, and is the only member of the group to have never served in the federal government during the period in which the TPLF were in control in Addis Ababa.
A party stalwart, he rose through the ranks within Tigray, and served for a time as the head of the TPLF’s party office in Mekelle, a powerful administrative position.
Alem is considered to be highly influential behind the scenes, having built a large network of supporters during his many years as a party insider. And although reportedly disliked by many of his colleagues, he has nevertheless managed to preserve his influence.
“He knows where everybody’s skeletons are buried,” says Daniel Berhane, a Tigrayan author and political analyst.
4. Getachew Assefa: the Ghost
Getachew is a veteran intelligence officer who ran Ethiopia’s feared National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) from 2001 until Abiy’s rise to power in 2018.
Everybody is afraid of him because he has a dossier on everyone
Under his tenure, NISS became notorious for human rights abuses within Ethiopia, particularly in the Somali and Oromia regions, where opposition to the federal government was strong. Getachew was one of the first senior Tigrayan officials to be sacked by Abiy when he came to power.
Long accustomed to operating in the shadows, the former spymaster keeps a very low profile, and opinion is divided as to the extent of his influence. Some believe he is a marginal figure these days, others that he is the TPLF’s eminence grise.
Whatever power he does still wield, it almost certainly owes more to fear than love. “Everybody is afraid of him because he has a dossier on everyone,” says another close observer.
What do the hardliners want?
The TPLF’s reassertion of authority comes at a critical time for Tigray, with a new Ethio-Eritrean war potentially looming even as unresolved issues from the previous round of conflict have been left to fester. These include the fate of the disputed territories of Western Tigray, and the plight of the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tigrayans who were forcibly displaced from that region between 2020 and 2022.
The TPLF had for months accused Getachew Reda’s administration of kow-towing to the federal government, and has vowed to restore Tigrayan control over the disputed territories, and facilitate the return of the thousands of Tigrayan internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their former homes.
The party has vowed to take a tougher line with the federal government in negotiations. But analysts warn that it will be difficult to strike a balance between applying pressure on Addis Ababa while avoiding a return to conflict for which Tigray is ill-prepared.
“The keys to Western Tigray and the IDPs aren’t sold in Mekelle [Tigray’s capital]. They are sold in Addis Ababa,” says Kjetil Tronvoll, a professor of conflict studies at Oslo New University College. “The TPLF will now inherit the same dilemma that Getachew has been trying to balance for the past two years,” he says..
“Will they hold a different negotiating position versus Abiy and Addis? Yes. They will try to articulate more clearly the demands as seen from Tigray. That might ring in their favour from the point of view of their Tigrayan constituents.”
However, should the TPLF fail to win back Western Tigray via negotiations with Addis Ababa, they may try to take it back by force – and would consider allying themselves with Eritrea to do so. There have been persistent allegations over the past few months of communications between TPLF officials and Eritrean representatives. The party has repeatedly denied the allegations.