TPLF 7th conference to kick off in Mekele

Mekelle city in Norht Ethiopia ready for TPLF party conference. Noticable indifference from Ethiopians. Will the conference make a difference in terms of resolving the crisis in the country?

Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is to kick off its 7th high-level executives’ organizational conference in Mekell starting Thursday, January 11, 2018, the party disclosed today in a social media update.

Preparations are finalized and the conference is eight days long. Further, the party announced that up to two thousand and five hundred executives are expected to participate in the conference. Tigray region constitutes about five percent of the entire Ethiopian population.

What seems to be unusual about the upcoming TPLF conference is that leadership from what TPLF calls “sister organizations” will be attending the conference as guests.

The opening ceremony of the conference is to be transmitted live through regional state media in Tigray but the news update the party claims that more than sixty-five state and “free press” journalists will be attending and reporting the conference.

As to agenda of the conference, the party says that regional and national challenges and possible solutions will be discussed, in addition to “tilk tehadso” (effort to reinvigorate the party as they believe that it is decaying)

The party has been accused of supremacist agenda which manifested itself in creating wealth for Tigray at the expense of the rest of Ethiopia, territorial expansion of Tigray region (the party has already incorporated Wolkait from Gonder and Raya from Wollo) and domination of key power structures in the Federal government.

As TPLF was bent on consolidating ethnic-based economic, military and political power within Ethiopia, the geopolitics in the region is changing fast in a way exposing the misguided policy of TPLF as it will remain as vulnerable as, if not worse, the rest of Ethiopia. As Egyptian military presence swells in Eritrea, Sudan is reinforcing military position along the border with Eritrea. Within in Ethiopia, mounting protest, influenced by the perception of TPLF supremacist agenda, is threatening the very existence of TPLF and the ruling coalition EPRDF is in turmoil as it tries to respond to that without changing the way it thinks about power and privilege in Ethiopia and without making much needed paradigm shift. Will the conference in Mekele bring about anything positive to help relive the crisis in Ehtiopia? Read more here