The coup in Tigray in March of 2025, it seems, resulted in the victory of the ‘conservative’ Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which was cemented by General Tadesse Werede being appointed head of the interim administration.
Context and reasons for political destabilisation
Despite the general cohesion within the TPLF, the latter have periodically manifested themselves throughout the more than 50-year history of the Front. However, the depth and scale of the consequences of the split that emerged in 2023-2024 between the chairman of the TPLF, Debretsion Gebremichael, and the newly appointed head of the Tigray Interim Administration and the recent official representative of the Front, Getachew Reda, turned out to be unprecedented even compared to the events of 2001. At that time, the leader of the TPLF, Meles Zenawi, managed to remove an influential group of functionaries from power, at the same time avoiding a split in the party. Now we have witnessed the fragmentation of the TPLF into two irreconcilable groups: the ‘old guard’ led by Debretsion Gebremichael and a more liberal and pluralistic faction led by Getachew Reda.
Escalation of the conflict and decisive steps
The peak of the confrontation took place this March when, against the background of de facto dual power in the state, the head of the Interim Administration dismissed three high-ranking TDF generals. It should be noted that although the TDF maintained formal neutrality until March 2025, experts noted the obvious closeness of the generals of the faction of Debretsion Gebremichael, which was only confirmed by Getachew Reda’s attempt to contain the military. Such an attempt by the head of the Interim Administration to take the situation into his own hands was perceived by his opponents as a signal to act: for several days in the first half of this March, armed supporters of Debretsion Gebremichael established control over those administrative centres where the authority of the Interim Administration still remained.
Thus, Getachew Reda was forced to flee to Addis Ababa, seeking help from the country’s prime minister as one of the signatories to the Pretoria agreements. In turn, Abiy Ahmed decided to follow the ‘path of minimal resistance’; it would be risky to start a new armed conflict with the TPLF, whose leaders, despite the internal conflict, did not directly defy Addis Ababa, especially in an extremely volatile foreign policy environment. Therefore, the federal government de facto recognised the transfer of power, while trying to show its importance in appointing a new head of the Interim Administration. In this sense, it is curious that Abiy Ahmed’s appeal to the residents of Tigray to take a direct part in the latter’s elections was rejected by the faction of Debretsion Gebremichael, saying that they ran contrary to the agreement in Pretoria.
A seemingly peaceful transfer of power and consequences
In early April, 2025, the almost month-long crisis of power was resolved, seemingly taking into account the interests of all parties. Thus, the recent head of the Tigray Interim Administration, Getachew Reda, was appointed adviser to the Prime Minister on cooperation with East African countries as a minister – a kind of compensation for the post lost. In turn, the federal government retained the image of having control over the situation. It was in Addis Ababa that a delegation led by General Tadesse Werede, the former head of the TDF and deputy head of the Interim Administration, who was appointed its new head, arrived. At the same time, it is rather obvious that the real beneficiary was the faction of Debretsion Gebremichael. The military coup launched this March was not only ignored by the centre, but was actually legalised by the official removal of Getachew Reda from office and the compromise appointment of a TPLF general.
Today, it may be said that, for some time, relative calm was established in Tigray. This was not due to the solution of accumulated problems, but, on the contrary, to a kind of ‘democratic rollback’. The Interim Administration, which included a number of politicians with ideas different from the ideological ‘core’ of the TPLF, was deposed, and its leaders were forced to settle for positions under the federal government and the creation of new political associations that hardly have the opportunity to actually operate in Tigray.
Ivan Kopytsev, political scientist, junior research fellow at the Centre for the Study of North Africa and the Horn of Africa at the Institute of African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences; research intern at the Centre for Middle Eastern and African Studies at the Institute of International Studies of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations
