Nine senior TPLF leaders left the organization

21 MARCH 2013
Nine veteran members of the TPLF, including Seyoum Mesfin, Berhan G/Kirstos, Sebhat Nega, Arkebe Equbay and Zeray Asgedom have left the organization, according to sources from Addis ababa.
Concluding its ninth convention, the senior partner in the ruling coalition, TPLF has elevated for the first time since its formation, a woman to its political bureau, making two of the nine politbureau members women, Fortune learnt.
Tirfu Kidanemariam, who was vice chairperson of the Tigray Women Association (TWA) in 2008, has now joined Azeb Mesfin in the TPLF’s top political body. Azeb was elected to the political bureau in 2010, the first woman to ever make it that high in the TPLF. Tirfu is a spouse to the party’s chairman and chief of the regional administration, Abay Woldu. She is head of TPLF’s all too powerful organisational affairs bureau. She has been elected to the central committee of the TPLF since 1999, and has also served as head of the region’s justice bureau.
As expected by those following the region’s political development, Tsegaye Berhe, a former chief of the regional state and current chairman of the National Security Council; and Abadi Zemo, Ethiopia’s ambassador to Sudan, have left the political bureau, upon their request, according to sources. They are replaced by Alem G. Wahid and Gebrehawariya Woldu, both veteran political operatives of the regional administration, heading various administrations at zone levels, according to our sources.
TPLF central committee, which has seen the departure of nine of its veteran members such as Seyoum Mesfin, Arkebe Oqubay, Brehane Gebrekirstos and Zeray Asgedom, has left its chairman and deputy intact. Abay Woldu and Debretsion Gebremikael will continue to lead the party as chairman and deputy.
The three other parities in the coalition are holding their respective congresses, thus elections to their political bureaus is expected soon. Political pundits are expect hardly any change in the compositions of their senior leaders, however.