ADDIS ABABA, 10 May. - (ANA) - The ruling party in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region reconstituted a parliament that had been disbanded as part of a postwar accord in 2022. The move threatens to raise tensions between regional adversaries in a country that is still recovering from a civil war that stymied attempts to liberalize one of Africa’s biggest economies.

 

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front announced the decision in a Facebook post on Sunday, accusing the federal government led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of extending the tenure of the region’s interim administrator without consultation. The parliament in question existed before the war between government troops and the TPLF began in 2020.

 

Ethiopia’s two-year civil war in the Tigray region led to the deaths of about 600,000 people. The end of the conflict eased the violence, but a power struggle has continued between the TPLF and Abiy’s deputies in the region. Getachew Reda, a top adviser to the prime minister and a former administrator of the Tigray region, said the TPLF’s latest move is “a clear repudiation of the fragile post-conflict arrangement.”

 

 

The fragile post-conflict arrangement

 

 

The decision by the Central Committee of what little is left of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), made public on April 19, 2026, marks a deeply alarming development in a region full of it. By officially rejecting the federal government's extension of General Tadesse Werede’s tenure as president of the Tigray Interim Administration and, more significantly, declaring its intent to reinstate the pre-2020 war regional council, the TPLF has taken a step that effectively voids the Pretoria Agreement. After all, the undoing of political and administrative measures taken immediately before the war was a core component of the accord. 

 

Regardless of the TPLF’s stated rationale, this decision constitutes a clear repudiation of the fragile post-conflict arrangement made possible by Pretoria, one that, however imperfectly, has prevented a relapse into full-scale war. Unfortunately, the latest decision also reflects a well-established pattern, in which the TPLF, whose political imagination begins and ends with the preservation of its parochial interests, pursues high-risk, destabilizing gambits whose consequences are borne disproportionately by the civilian population.

 

The fact of the matter is that the people of Tigray, still saddled with the previous war's toll,  cannot afford another descent into violence. Not surprisingly, any unilateral decision to do away with the Pretoria Agreement and dismantle the fragile postwar order, is likely to trigger renewed confrontation, not only among regional actors but also with the federal government itself.

 

The international community must,  therefore, take urgent note of this alarming development and act to stave off the looming threat of a catastrophic conflict in a region that can ill-afford one. Furthermore, it must send unambiguous signals that any unilateral abrogation of the Pretoria Agreement carries with it enforceable consequences.  At the same time, it must renew calls for and work towards the full implementation of the Pretoria Agreement. The costs of inaction and delay would, as before, be borne by civilians who have yet to recover from one of the most destructive wars in recent memory. Act before the window for effective action closes!

 

 

 

AB/ANA/10 May 2026 - - -