Despite the 101 sabotages, Tigray successfully conducted its historical election

By Gemech Tussa
Tigrai Online Sept. 9, 2020

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This is a special day,  a landmark  in the history of  the people of Tigray in which the people  confirmed once again that the  unitary system has no place  in Tigray, President of the Tigray Regional State Debretsion Gebremichael (PhD) emphasized.

The  disharmony between the Federal Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray Regional State was  emanated from the illicit actions of the  former as they on intention  committed lots of  sabotage  against  the unity of the people of Tigray and their leading political party TPLF.

The Federal Government under the leadership of Abiy Ahmed has been exerting  a lot of economic. political and social deliberate damages against the people of Tigray in the past two solid years. This piece, therefore, attempts to describe some of the illicit actions and impositions and the courage, determination and devotion of Tigrians in carrying out their plans.

Abiy Ahmed and his backers have  been doing a great deal of political disrupt  in the country since its emergence into power. One of these   was  insecuring  the national interest and the  sovereignty of the country by taking to pieces the intelligence and security  institutions of the country built in the past three decades. Moreover, he murdered the celebrated Engineer Simegnew Bekel to fulfill the interest of Egypt, the country supporting the violence in the Oromia Region under the name of 'Team Lemma' to bring Abiy Ahmed to his current position.

It is also public secret that the Federal Government done a number of actions against Tigrians in  isolation.  They locked up  members of the intelligence institution who were serving their country only for their identity. Besides, the government  either jailed or sent away most of the Tigrian generals and military officials  who were served for long periods in the country's defense force. 

Those unacceptable actions taken by   Prime  Minister Abiy Ahmed and his supporters now and again aimed not only to uproot TPLF and its legacy of democratic development but also to  get rid of  the Federal System. Those illicit feats  to replace the Federal System by the Unitary System in general and jeopardize the  2020  Regional election in Tigray National  State   in particular failed to hit their targets.

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Although  the Federal Government  exerted unreserved effort to force the Regional State to scrap the 2020 election, the people of Tigray along their political parties  never changed their firm principled stance so that they managed to conduct their historical election.

Due to the unity of the people, the actions taken by the Federal Government  faild to hold water. All the  efforts  to compel the Regional State to  give up its plans of  holding  the elections remained only  in black and white.  The people never laid down their arms rather  reinforced their unity; overcame all the challenges and carried out their historical election.

The people. the government and the  competing political parties  had  firm stances on the people's constitutional  rights of  voting for their leaders.

The worst of all is the actions taken by the  governmet   using   the media mainly Ethiopian Broadcasting  Corporate, Fana Broadcasting Corporate, Walta Media and Communication,  Ethiopian News Agency and Ethiopian Press Agency as  instruments to propagate hostility  between the people of Tigray and other Ethiopians by  broadcating  and publishing various conflict triggering unfounded stories in connection to the people of  Tigray and TPLF.

They  disseminated different documentary films using fiction protagonist and  various characters; those persons who faced various accidents  and lost part of their body describing as if they were amputated or hurt by Tigrians so us to create antagonism between the people of Tigray and other Ethiopians.

The government's imposition on the economic activities of the Regional State is also apparent. Most of the  mega development projects financed by the Federal Government died away  under the pretext of   financial constrains while their budget has  allocated  for other purposes.

Moreover. the government's  intelligence and security members  have been devoted on compelling investors to restrain themselves from going to Tigray and investing there.

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The delegation of the People's Republic of China  could be a typical example for this. They were forced by the government securities to canceal their voyage to Mekelle regardless of  the legal  procedures they fulfilled to go to Mekelle and make investment agreements with the Regional State.

Tigrian investors who have  different investment in Tigray have also been facing  a lot of impositions by the government. The Premier himself gathered them and gave them warnning not to go to Tigray, neither to invest there.   The Abiy administration also remained silent while the  Federal Highway from Addis Ababa to Mekelle was illegally blocked for  two years in a bid to weaken the economic activities of Tigray  Region.

The Social damage is also rife.  The Federal Government has exerted a lot of efforts to create social choas  mainly in the Tigray Regional State. In the first place,  the government replaced all politically assigned Tigrians by others and let them  as well as their family suffer from financial constraints.  In the second place,  it  forced civil professional Tigrians working in different Federal Institutions  to quit their jobs. Above all,  many tigrians were murdered and  others were jailed. In addition to thar more than one hundred thousand  Tigrians who lived for many years  in different parts of the country were displaced to their region having deserted their properties there.

In a nut shell, despite the varieties of  sabotages,  Tigray has already elected its leaders in a peaceful, democratic , free and fair manner. According to Debretsion Gebremicael,  history is repeated itself in Tigray. In 1991, the people of Tigray being under the umbrella of  TPLF  overthrew the dictatorial unitary system with an  unprecedented sacrifice  and this time the people repeated the same history. It forwarded it message  that there is no space for the unitary system in Tigray. That is why  Tigray held its Regional election despite  the  101 sabotages of Prosperty Party and the Federal Government whose legitimacy of  ruling the country will come to  end at the beginning of  October  2020.