Is
the Tigrai People’s Liberation Front a Communist Party?
A Brief Review
Professor
Desta, Asayehgn
Since
the oust of the brutal socialist military dictatorship from power in 1991,
a large portion of the Ethiopian people have desired and dreamed living in
a democratic system of government rather than a communist-dominated
government. The Ethiopian people wished their country’s democratic
system would entertain
1) free and fair elections; 2) active participation of the Ethiopian
citizens in politics and civic life; 3) protection of the human rights;
and 4) the existence of rule of law, in which the laws and procedures of
the country apply equally to all citizens (See for example, Stanford
University, 2004).
The
Ethiopian elites redefined the transitional Ethiopia’s political and
social structure. Starting with the formation of the Ethiopian
Constitution in 1994, the Ethiopian government was forced to cope with new
realities and to seek its own path toward the formation of the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.
Over
twenty-five years later, Ethiopia has yet to implement the democratic
ideals listed above. In his article, ”Let
us not make a mistake: The TPLF is first and foremost a Communist Party,”
author Teshome Beyene Berhe warns us that, though never officially
acknowledged, the Tigrain People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has been
preaching and practicing communism ever since its inception. The primary
principles of communism followed by the TPLF included 1) democratic
centralism; 2) the use of iron discipline as the unshakable rule
of the game;
3) consensus decision making processes; and 4) denouncement and subversion
of rival political parties (November 25, 2017).
Using
Teshome’s argument, the purpose of this paper is to briefly review the
Tigrai People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) Conference held in Mekelle. More
specifically, the article attempts to review whether the procedures of the
35-day TPLF conference validate Teshome’s argument that the TPLF 1)
adheres to the mottos of democratic centralism, and 2) uses iron
discipline to execute the party’s decisions.
Democratic
centralism
Based
on information provided by the propaganda machine of the Ethiopian ruling
class, most outsiders might think that the Ethiopian People’s Ruling
Democratic Front (EPRDF) attempts to purport a dialectical combination of
democracy (encouraging free and open discussion) and centralism (ensuring
party unity and discipline) to rule the country while transitioning to
democracy. In other words, when juxtaposed with the outside world, the
EPRDF might give the impression that though Ethiopia is currently ruled by
a monolithic party, it is using a synergy between democratic and
centralism to charter Ethiopia’s course to democracy.
However,
as Teshome argues, the TPLF does not seem to be transitioning to democracy
and is not exercising what it propagates to the outside world. Teshome
argues that, particularly in Tigrai Region, the TPLF hardly tolerates
dissention. The TPLF generally requires decisions made at the upper
echelon of the leadership, without any deviation, to be implemented into
action at the lowest level of the region’s administrative structure.
Whatever central party members decide, every level of administration is
supposed to implement it without any change.
A
study of the recent “35-days Conference,” which ran from October
through the beginning of December 2017, in Mekelle, Tigrai Region, reveals
that, though the people of Tigrai are supposed to be sovereign with the
highest form of political authority, except by the 45 nominal elected
members, the worede people were
not allowed to evaluate their representatives at the central committee
level. Instead of giving the worede
people control over their elected representative, the TPLF’s ardently
communist members acted arbitrarily either to oust some members from the
Federal Politburo or temporally suspend others from the TPLF Central
Committee.
In
other words, instead of considering the needs of the local population, the
TPLF made decisions based on communistic guidelines. The ‘old guard’
and certain party-selected local representatives were given the
discretionary power to make immediate decisions. However, if the TPLF
Party seriously applied the 2011 Federal constitutional amendment that
granted self-rule to local units (woredes),
it would have produced effective bargaining for civic society and
assured checks and balances (Desta, 2017).
Iron
Discipline rules the Game
The
guiding principle of communism is party discipline. Given that the TPLF is
the only monolithic party, it bases the guiding organizational nature of
its democratic centralist party on rigorous discipline, criticism, and
self-criticism of party members. As Teshome rightly argues, the Tigrai
communist party “…invokes and enforces iron disciplines. Members must
toe the line and respect party lines rules and procedures...”
To
dismantle Ethiopia’s despotic military rule, the TPLF relied upon
rigorous party discipline to achieve power. At this juncture, observers
must ask why the TPLF continues to insist upon communism and holding the
people of Tigrai prisoners of an outdated system when other regions in
Ethiopia try so hard to embrace democracy.
At
every sub-district (woreda) level in
Tigrai, residents have little meaningful power to select their
representatives. Meanwhile, local people have no rights to elect
representatives willing to hear to their needs and suggestions. For
example, during the last election in 2015, some federal members of
parliament never even visited their local districts to share their future
agendas. Adding insult to injury, some nominal candidates never bothered
to hear their constituencies’ concerns. Furthermore, other political
rival party members were denounced and threatened by the cadres of the
ruling party not to assemble freely and voice their agendas. In
the recent thirty-five-day conference in Mekele, Tigrai, the same members
of the ‘old guard’ were chosen to maintain the status quo instead of
fighting to make substantial improvements.
Conclusion
While
battling the Military Junta or the Derg in Ethiopia for more than
seventeen years, the TPLF might have effectively used its communistic
ideologies to create the illusion that the TPLF had unlimited appetite for
membership and power in order to acquire supporters. After
the country had emerged from communist military misrule, however, it
should be crystal clear that the absorbing capacity of the TPLF is
extremely limited. As a
result, though the country has educated many of its people, the new
progressive generation has failed to cross the bridge and reignite
Ethiopia’s modus operandi.
Instead, the communist ‘old guard’ of the TPLF Party remain in
power—and others not officially in power control the Tigrai Region’s
electoral process.
Those
narrow ideologies unquestionably linked to Ethiopia’s institutional
failure can no longer excuse themselves by claiming they once liberated
the Ethiopia’s downtrodden masses from the brutal military rule. Now
that a number of formerly socialist countries have abandoned communism,
why do the TPLF members continue to place the Tigrai’s destiny in the
hands of an outdated and deadly communist ideology?
Instead,
let local self-government flourish under representative democracy so the
Tigrai people can live peacefully, without oppression or fear. For too
long, the Tigrai Region has been governed in the interest of the few.
Finally, the outspoken, Teshome has challenged the system and sounded the
trumpet, and it will take the combined strengths of all Tigraians to make
substantial changes.
The
recent “35 day’s conference,” held in Makele, was a mockery that
achieved no fundamental change. Without consulting the people of Tigrai,
officials from the same group have been given new huts. The TPLF Party has
had its own way for far too long, and a culture of political cronyism and
favoritism has prevailed for over twenty-five years. The people of Tigrai
have allowed a few powerful individuals to rise above the law to and
enforce their poisonous ideologies—but the time for change has come.
References:
Desta,
A. (2017). Re-thinking Ethiopia’s
Ethnic Federalism. Saarbruken,
Germany:Lambert Academic
Publishing.
Stanford
University, (2004). What is Democracy? “What is Democracy?”. Available
at http://web.stanford.edu/--Idiamond/iraq/whatisdemocracy012004.htm.
Teshome
B. Berhe (November 25, 2017). “Let us not make a mistake: The TPLF is
first and formemost a Communist Party.” Aigaforum. Available at http://aigaforum.com/article
2017/TPLF-a communist-party.htm.
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