October 17, 2024
borkena
Toronto – In an interview with the Ethiopian Reporter, Gebru Asrat, former member of TPLF and long time president of Tigray region, offered a rather honest analysis into the problem within the TPLF. In so doing , and in response to subsequent questions on the root causes of the problem.
He is of the view that the TPLF will no longer be able to rule the Tigray region like before due to rising demand for change. He likened the situation in Tigray to one that prevailed in the rest of Ethiopia in the year 2015 and the subsequent years that led to the 2018 “change.”
As to the factions, he says the Getachew faction has raised some reformist agenda on questions related to the separation of the party and businesses , and on democracy.
Gebru sees leadership as one of the problems and he traces it back to the days of Meles Zenawi leadership. He was clear that he does not subscribe to the view that Meles was a good leader for the party nor to the country. He says there was no long term vision and there was a failure to mobilize the entire people.
On the question of economic achievement during the Meles era, he questioned that the economic growth came with debt and it was those who work with the party that benefited from it. It was not shared. There was no equitable redistribution of economic growth.
He sees the current TPLF leadership more like a kleptocrats with no agenda for the public either justice or democracy.
Asked what he thinks of Debretsion Gebremichael, Gebru first emphasized that the problem is structural and an offshoot of the party in general. On Debretsion, he said “he is a technocrat; he is not a politician.”
Gebru Asrat also sees the ruling Prosperity Party as the continuity of the now defunct Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Yet, he rated it as worse than the EPRDF. In addition to the pervasive security problem in the country, he pointed to the war in the Tigray region and the ongoing wars in the Amhara and Oromia region.
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