Addis Abeba, November 21/2019- In a letter issued last night and addressed to the secretariat of the EPRDF Council, TPLF, one of the four major parties constituting EPRDF, said it will not participate in the planned meeting of the EPRDF Council today. TPLF cited both procedural and legal shortfalls to decline today’s meeting of the 180 member Council, the highest authority of EPRDF.
In its planned meeting today, EPRDF’s Council is expected to discuss and possibly approve three major agendas: EPRDF’s merger, Prosperity Party (PP) manifesto, and Prosperity Party’s bylaw. These were the three major agendas approved by majority members of EPRDF’s 36 member Executive Committee (EC) during the three days meeting over the last weekend. TPLF representatives of the EC have already voted against the merger document in the first day of the EC’s meeting.
Last night’s letter by TPLF, issued after its own Central Committee meeting held in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray regional state, earlier during the day, dismissed EPRDF’s EC approval of the three agendas as akin to a differed act in the procedure because the EPRDF EC meeting was convened to discuss a document pertaining to the merger and not to approve any agenda on the merger.
Citing a legal shortfall, the letter further said that TPLF’s representatives of the EPRDF Council members have no legal mandate to dissolve the party in the name of merger and that such mandate is only that of the result of broader steps of consultation through different party hierarchy, which will culminate the final decision in TPLF’s own Council. Therefore TPLF declined to participate in today’s crucial meeting of the EPRDF Council.
Of the 180 EPRDF Council members, 45 are from TPLF. ODP, ADP & SEPDM take up the remaining with 45 of their own members each. AS
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