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The Ethiopian Democratic Union or EDU, also known as Teranafit (formerly a separate group based in Shire before it merged with the EDU), was one of the political parties that formed in opposition to the Derg regime of Ethiopia. It merged with the Ethiopian Democratic Party to form the Ethiopian Democratic Unity Party.
Founded in the aftermath of the revolution and the military coup that toppled Emperor Haile Selassie in September 1974, the EDU professed a conservative agenda. Established under the tutelage of the hereditary Prince of Tigray, Ras Mangasha Seyum, the EDU was made up of various elements that included land owners who were opposed to the nationalization of their land holdings, monarchists, high-ranking military officers displaced by the mutineers who had led the coup against the Emperor, and conservative and centrist opponents of the Marxist-Leninist Derg. From mid-1976 into 1977, the EDU broadcast radio programs into Ethiopia from the Sudan, and also launched a military campaign into Begemder that almost captured Gondar. Although democratic ideals were voiced by the party, and vaguely promoted a constitutional monarchy, it never made its political program clear, a failing which eventually weakened the EDU when its various factions began to diverge politically. Ethnic rivalries between the Tigrean loyalists of Ras Mangasha and the non-Tigrean elements of the EDU also widened the split.
Other rebel movements politically opposed to the EDU, which included the Tigrayan Peoples' Liberation Front in Tigray and the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party in Begemder, fought against them and helped the Derg forces push the EDU out of the territories it held. In 1978, the leadership of the EDU split due to serious political differences that had developed between them and it withdrew from the armed struggle against the Derg regime. It remained active among Ethiopian exile communities, particularly in Europe and in the Sudan.
The group was responsible for a pogrom against Ethiopian Jews in 1978. [1]
The EDU reorganized in Addis Ababa as a legal opposition party after the TPLF led the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front to power. It was at this time the party assumed a pan-Ethiopian liberal republican ideology. [2] The party had a representative at the July 1991 London conference which led to the establishment of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia. [2] [3] However some small factions continued to resist the EPRDF, particularly in Begemder province. [2]
In September 2003, the EDU merged with the Ethiopian Democratic Party, becoming the United Ethiopian Democratic Party. [4] Seyoum Mengesha became the party's honorary chairman, but played little role in the party administration, living in exile, and the post was quietly abolished.
The government of Ethiopia is the federal government of Ethiopia. It is structured in a framework of a federal parliamentary republic, whereby the prime minister is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the government. The prime minister is chosen by the lower chamber of the Federal Parliamentary Assembly. Federal legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of parliament. The judiciary is more or less independent of the executive and the legislature. They are governed under the 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia. There is a bicameral parliament made of the 108-seat House of Federation and the 547-seat House of Peoples' Representatives. The House of Federation has members chosen by the regional councils to serve five-year terms. The House of Peoples' Representatives is elected by direct election, who in turn elect the president for a six-year term.
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The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front was an ethnic federalist political coalition in Ethiopia that existed from 1988 to 2019. It consisted of four political parties: Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), Amhara Democratic Party (ADP), Oromo Democratic Party (ODP) and Southern Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement (SEPDM). After leading the overthrow of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, it dominated Ethiopian politics from 1991 to 2019. In November 2019, the EPRDF was dissolved, and Prime Minister and EPDRF chairman Abiy Ahmed merged three of the constituent parties into his new Prosperity Party, which was officially founded on 1 December 2019.
The Derg, officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the Marxist-Leninist military dictatorship that ruled Ethiopia, then including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when the military leadership or junta formally "civilianized" the administration but stayed in power until 1991.
The Tigray People's Liberation Front, also called the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, is a left-wing ethnic nationalist, paramilitary group, and the former ruling party of Ethiopia. It was classified as a terrorist organization by the Ethiopian government from May 2021 until its removal from the list in March 2023. In older texts and Amharic publications, it is known as Woyane or Wayane.
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The Marxist–Leninist League of Tigray (MLLT) was a semi-clandestine Hoxhaist Communist Party that held a leading role in the Tigrayan Peoples' Liberation Front (TPLF) in the 1980s. The majority of the TPLF leadership held dual membership in the MLLT, including Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia from 1995 until his death in 2012.
The Ethiopian Civil War was a civil war in Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea, fought between the Ethiopian military junta known as the Derg and Ethiopian-Eritrean anti-government rebels from 12 September 1974 to 28 May 1991.
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Seyoum Mengesha KBE was an army commander and a member of the royal family of the Ethiopian Empire.
Le'ul RasMengesha Seyoum is a member of the imperial family of the Ethiopian Empire. In 1974, the monarchy was abolished by the Derg, a communist military junta.
Haile Selassie Gugsa CBE (1907–1985) was an Ethiopian army commander and member of the Imperial family from Tigray. He is known for becoming a fascist collaborator during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.
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Tigrayan nationalism is an ethnic nationalism that advocates the interests of Tigrayan people in Ethiopia. Inspired predominantly by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) with its predecessor Tigray Liberation Front (TLF), this type of nationalism holds that Tigrayans are an independent group with unique ancestry, heritage, history and culture outside Ethiopia. As such, they claim Tigray is the source of Ethiopian civilization and utterly a benefactor of state-building without other local ethnic groups. Tigrayan nationalist accuse Amhara imperial dominance of oppressing their identity despite the fact that both Amhara and Tigray emperors have contributed to the creation of modern Ethiopia.
The fall of the Derg, also known as Downfall of the Derg, was a military campaign that resulted the defeat of the ruling military junta Derg by the rebel coalition Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) on 28 May 1991 in Addis Ababa, ending the Ethiopian Civil War. The Derg took power after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie and the Solomonic dynasty, an imperial dynasty of Ethiopia that began in 1270. The Derg suffered insurgency with different factions, and separatist rebels groups since early their rule, beginning with the Ethiopian Civil War. The 1983–1985 famine, the Red Terror, and resettlement and villagization infamed the Derg with majority of Ethiopians tended to support insurgent groups like the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF).
The 1995 Ethiopian Federal Constitution formalizes an ethnic federalism law aimed at undermining long-standing ethnic imperial rule, reducing ethnic tensions, promoting regional autonomy, and upholding unqualified rights to self-determination and secession in a state with more than 80 different ethnic groups. But the constitution is divisive, both among Ethiopian nationalists who believe it undermines centralized authority and fuels interethnic conflict, and among ethnic federalists who fear that the development of its vague components could lead to authoritarian centralization or even the maintenance of minority ethnic hegemony. Parliamentary elections since 1995 have taken place every five years since enactment. All but one of these have resulted in government by members of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) political coalition, under three prime ministers. The EPRDF was under the effective control of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which represents a small ethnic minority. In 2019 the EPRDF, under Abiy, was dissolved and he inaugurated the pan-ethnic Prosperity Party which won the 2021 Ethiopian Election, returning him as prime minister. But both political entities were different kinds of responses to the ongoing tension between constitutional ethnic federalism and the Ethiopian state's authority. Over the same period, and all administrations, a range of major conflicts with ethnic roots have occurred or continued, and the press and availability of information have been controlled. There has also been dramatic economic growth and liberalization, which has itself been attributed to, and used to justify, authoritarian state policy.
This list details about chronological aspect of the Derg, the military junta that ruled Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987 by decade.
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