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A senior official in the Tigray Popular Liberation Front, the regional ruling party, says Abiy has no mandate to decide appointments, troop movements.
A brigadier general was unable to occupy a post in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, an official said on Friday, escalating a dispute between the region and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government that analysts say could become violent.
The military officer flew from the capital Addis Ababa to Tigray on Thursday for his new assignment, but returned after being informed that “his appointment would not be considered legitimate,” said Getachew Reda, a senior official with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. (TPLF), the regional ruling party.
“Any appointment or movement of troops” is “totally unacceptable” at this time because the TPLF believes that Abiy no longer has a mandate for such movements, Getachew told the AFP news agency.
A spokesman for the Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The TPLF dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly 30 years before Abiy came to power in 2018 thanks to anti-government protests.
Under Abiy, Tigrayan leaders have complained of being unfairly targeted in corruption prosecutions, removed from the highest positions, and generally scapegoats for the country’s troubles.
Ethiopia was due to hold national elections in August, but the country’s electoral body ruled in March that the elections would be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Lawmakers then voted to extend the officials’ terms, which would have expired in early October, but Tigrayan leaders rejected this and went ahead with regional elections in September that the Abiy government deemed illegal.
Now, each side sees the other as illegitimate, and federal lawmakers have ruled that the Abiy government should cut off contact with the Tigray leadership and its funding.
In recent days, tensions have risen over who controls federal military personnel and assets in Tigray.
Last week, Tigrayan officials denounced a plan by the Abiy government to reorganize the military leadership in the north.
In a report published on Friday, the International Crisis Group warned that the confrontation between Addis Ababa and Tigray “could unleash a damaging conflict that could even tear the Ethiopian state apart.”
Such a war “would be catastrophic for the second most populous country in Africa and send shock waves and refugees to other countries in the Horn of Africa, as well as across the Mediterranean Sea,” the report said.
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