Sebhat Nega

Although Abiy's government released some TPLF veterans including one of its founders Sebhat Nega from prison on 7 January the prime minister has repeatedly argued that dialogue with the current TPLF leadership is impossible (AC Vol 63 No 2 Prisoners' release sparks war cries)...

The prisoners were released on Ethiopian Christmas 7 January and included six former leaders of the rebel Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) among them one of its founder leaders Sebhat Nega...

Also in May Sebhat Nega a TPLF founder and rival of Azeb's stepped down from a government foreign policy think tank...

One of the TPLF's founding members Sebhat Nega was also on the committee...

Her husband's death allowed her great rival Sebhat Nega to revitalise his waning political career...

The retirement of these and other old-guard members such as Sebhat Nega appears to represent a victory for the group around Tigray Regional President Abay Woldu and Meles’s widow Azeb Mesfin to whom the new members are loyal...

They include Sebhat Nega a survivor from the TPLF's original leadership and Chairperson of the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (Efort); his sister Kidusan Nega who chairs the Democratic Association of Tigrayan Women; her husband Tsegaye Berhe Tigray State President; Bereket Simeon Information Minister and Vice-Chairman of the Amhara National Democratic Movement; Teodros Hagos on the EPRDF Central Committee and the Efort board; Yemane Kidane veteran politician and Chef de Cabinet in the Foreign Affairs Ministry; and Gen...

Two other Politbureau members from Axum- Adua Abai Tsehaye - a former chairman of the Marxist Leninist League of Tigray (MLLT or ‘Malalit’) - and Sebhat Nega at firstbacked the hardliners...

Meles held support among more ideological Committee members including head of Organisation Tewolde Woldemariam Alemseged Gebre Amlak of the Ideological Department and senior Politbureau member Sebhat Nega; but the former MLLT Chairman Abai Tsehaye swung the undecided by robust responses and swift agreement to act against Eritrea...