Coalition of Ethiopian Federalist Forces

The Coalition of Ethiopian Federalist Forces (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ፌዴራሊስት ኃይሎች ጥምረት) was a coalition of Ethiopian political parties from 2019 to 2020 that included the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the former ruling party that lost power in 2018.

Coalition of Ethiopian Federalist Forces የኢትዮጵያ ፌዴራሊስት ኃይሎች ጥምረት
Leader	Dereje Bekele
Founded	2019 (2019)
Dissolved	2020 (2020)
Succeeded by	United Front of Ethiopian Federalist and Confederalist Forces
Headquarters	Mekelle
Ideology	Ethnic federalism Revolutionary democracy
Political position	Left-wing
Member parties	TPLF (before 2020) Teranafit
Politics of Ethiopia Political parties Elections

Background

In August 2019, the former dominant political party in Ethiopia, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), that lost power in 2018, proposed creating a new ethno-federalist alliance. According to René Lefort and William Davison writing in Ethiopian Insight, the TPLF was likely to have difficulty creating an ethno-federalist alliance because it was "reviled from all parts of the Ethiopian political spectrum as the party that either created a despised ethnic federalism to divide-and-rule in its narrow ethnocentric interests, or the control-freaks that refused to allow true multinational federalism to breathe through its authoritarian blanket."

During 3–4 December 2019, the TPLF organised the second of two forums for "rescuing the constitution and multi-ethnic Federal System" in Mekelle. Borkena described the attendance as "not great". The coordinator of the forum, Mulugeta, stated that fifty national and ethnic-based parties and 700 prominent individuals attended the forum.

Creation

The Coalition of Ethiopian Federalist Forces was created in Mekelle. On 14 May 2020, when the general election scheduled for August 2020 was delayed by the federal government due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Coalition held a meeting in Addis Ababa and stated that it supported the decision, while the TPLF opposed the decision.

On 25 June, at the Coalition's fourth meeting, in Addis Ababa, the Coalition decided to dismiss the TPLF and the Ethiopian Democratic Union if they missed any more meetings. Reasons cited for dismissing the two parties included: "dividing the members of the coalition and creating pressure"; "exploiting the coalition as a means to [destabilise] the country"; "missing meetings and insisting that meetings must take place in Mekelle"; and TPLF's decision to hold the 2020 Tigray regional election.

Structure

As of 25 June 2020, Dereje Bekele was the chair of the Coalition. The Coalition claims to be constituted of 24 political parties.

Platforms, proposals

On 29 September 2020, a TPLF spokesperson proposed that a Coalition proposal posted on Facebook be used to continue a legal form of government following what the TPLF said was the end of the government's mandate on 5 October 2020. The Coalition's text proposed the "formation of an independent technocratic caretaker government the composition of which reflects the diversity of the Ethiopian people ... in line with the constitution and in consultation with all political stake holders and will be in charge until such time the peace and national salvation conference comes up with an agreed solution to the political and constitutional problems."