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The TPLF and the politics of selective constitutionalism
Following the recent decision of the House of Federation (HoF), directing the National Election Board to administratively segregate five contested constituencies—Humera, Adi Remet, Korem Ofla, Telemt, and Raya—from the Tigray’s electoral framework, the TPLF and its affiliates have erupted in condemnation.
They allege a grave constitutional breach and a violation of the Pretoria Agreement. However, this accusation is a strategic deflection, a smokescreen designed to obscure their own history of constitutional subversion.
A rigorous examination of constitutional law, historical precedent, the text of the Pretoria Agreement, and the HoF’s own procedures reveals a different truth: the TPLF’s outrage is not a defense of the rule of law, but a last-ditch effort to protect an unlawful territorial expansion.
The HoF’s recent decision is not a violation of the constitution; it is a long-overdue, legally mandated interim step toward rectifying decades of injustice.
Selective Constitutionalism
The TPLF’s current invocation of the constitution is fundamentally undermined by its historical and ongoing relationship with the supreme law of the land. This is a pattern of selective constitutionalism, where the constitution is weaponized against political rivals but brazenly ignored when it constrains the TPLF’s own pursuit of power.
Most damning is the TPLF’s violation of Article 87 of the constitution, which explicitly mandates a single national defense force. By maintaining a parallel military structure and ultimately launching an attack on the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) in November 2020, the TPLF committed what may be the gravest constitutional violation since the document’s ratification.
While the Pretoria Agreement forced a nominal disarmament, requiring them to accept the principle of a single national army, the TPLF’s reported efforts to reconstitute and strengthen their forces expose their enduring bad faith.
For the TPLF, the constitution is not a binding social contract but a political prop, a tool for propaganda to be revered only when it serves as a cudgel against their adversaries.
Legal Fiction
The TPLF’s core claim – that Welkait, Telemt, and Raya are constitutionally part of the Tigray – crumbles under legal and historical scrutiny. They fail to cite a specific constitutional article supporting this annexation because none exists.
These territories were forcibly incorporated into what was then “Region 1” (Tigray) through military and administrative fiat during the transitional period before the 1995 constitution was ever enacted.
Proclamation No. 7/1992, issued by the Transitional Government of Ethiopia, explicitly stipulated that regional boundaries should be determined based on settlement patterns and the woreda boundaries existing prior to the 1974 Derg regime.
Article 4 of this proclamation clearly states that, pending a final determination, the boundaries from before 1974 shall serve as the basis for regional delimitation.
The TPLF, leveraging its military and political dominance at the time, brazenly overrode this legal framework. Areas with a predominantly Amhara identity and historical administrative ties to Gondar and Wollo—such as Welkait, Tegede, Humera, Telemt, and Raya—were forcibly annexed.
This act was a direct contradiction of what would become Article 46 of the final constitution, which mandates that regions be delimited based on “settlement patterns, language, identity and consent of the people concerned”.
The annexation was achieved through the systematic absence of consent; a violation of the very principles upon which the constitution was built.
Furthermore, it contradicts Proclamation 7/1992 itself, which in Article 3 listed the peoples of Tigray as the “Tigray, Saho and Kunama”, not the Amhara inhabitants of these annexed areas.
Forced Concession
To cement its illegal hold, the TPLF engaged in a campaign of demographic engineering. This involved the systematic displacement of indigenous Amhara populations and the settlement of Tigrayan natives and ex-combatants into these conquered territories.
Despite this, the displaced and remaining residents never relinquished their Amhara identity, and their persistent calls for reunification with Amhara form the basis of the current dispute.
Following the 2018 political reform, these grievances were formally submitted to the HoF. Amhara, acting on behalf of its people and based on studies confirming the historical and demographic facts, formally requested a boundary rectification in accordance with Article 48 of the constitution and the procedures outlined in Proclamation No. 1261/2021.
Crucially, the Pretoria Agreement itself validates the disputed nature of these territories. Article 10 of the Agreement explicitly mandates that “contested areas” be resolved through the established constitutional framework.
By signing this document, the TPLF provided a binding international acknowledgment that Welkait, Telemt, and Raya are not incontrovertibly Tigrayan, but are instead disputed territories awaiting a legal resolution.
During the negotiations, the TPLF’s own chief negotiator publicly stated that while they could not agree to cede the areas to Amhara, they accepted the designation of “disputed” to be resolved by the constitution. This renders their current claims of absolute ownership not just historically false, but a direct repudiation of their own international commitment.
The HoF is the constitutionally mandated body for resolving such disputes, as per Article 48 of the constitution and Proclamation No. 1261/2021. Its role must be assessed in two parts: the recent decision on electoral districts and its prior handling of the substantive dispute.
The HoF’s recent decision concerning the elections is a logical and necessary interim step, fulfilling its duty under the Pretoria Agreement. By ordering that federal parliamentary elections proceed in these areas outside of Tigray’s administrative structure while deferring regional council elections, the HoF is doing exactly what the situation demands.
It is preventing Tigray from using the electoral process to further entrench its administrative control over disputed territory.
This decision ensures that the final status of these areas, as determined by the constitutional process, is not prejudged by an election. It is a direct and practical application of Article 10 of the Pretoria Agreement.
Procedural Error
However, to fully rectify the situation, it is crucial to acknowledge where the HoF has erred. Proclamation No. 1261/2021 establishes a clear legal sequence for resolving boundary disputes.
Article 38 states that the House shall first study the settlement patterns of the people. If it finds sufficient data to determine which region the area belongs to based on this historical and demographic evidence, it shall decide based on that data.
Article 38 states that only if the House finds, after studying settlement patterns, that it cannot determine to which region the disputed area belongs based on that data, then it shall resort to gauging the will of the people (a referendum).
The HoF committed a significant legal error by inverting this sequence. It prioritized a referendum as the first option, bypassing the mandated study of historical settlement patterns. This was a clear violation of its own procedural law.
Had the House properly analysed the settlement data from the time of the initial annexation under Proclamation 7/1992—as requested by Amhara—there is ample historical and demographic evidence to mandate the return of these areas to Amhara.
Despite this prior procedural error, the recent decision to treat these areas as separate from Tigray for election purposes is a valid and necessary corrective step. It is a case of “better late than never”. It prevents the situation from worsening while the HoF belatedly prepares to follow the correct legal path.
The TPLF’s current outrage is hypocritical, as they have consistently obstructed the implementation of the HoF’s previous (flawed) path of a referendum, demonstrating their contempt for any constitutional resolution that does not guarantee their control.
Righting Injustice
The TPLF’s accusations of a constitutional violation are a smokescreen designed to distract from their own “original sin”: the armed annexation of these territories decades ago and their ongoing transactional relationship with the rule of law.
The HoF’s recent decision regarding electoral districts of disputed territories is an act of constitutional guardianship, however delayed.
It is a necessary interim measure to prevent the electoral machinery from being used to entrench an illegal occupation and to align state practice with the Pretoria Agreement.
To fully rectify the historical wrong and its own procedural misstep, the House must now proceed with urgency along the correct legal sequence.
It must set aside the premature talk of a referendum and base its final, binding ruling on the historical settlement data and the enduring identity of the people of Welkait, Telemt, and Raya, as the constitution, Proclamation No. 1261/2021, and the victims of this long-standing injustice have always demanded.
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While this commentary contains the author’s opinions, Ethiopia Insight will correct factual errors.
Main photo: From left to right: Col. Demeke Zewdu, Getachew Reda, Ashete Demlew, and Mohammed Idris lead a meeting with members of the Wolkait–Tsegede Amhara Border and Identity Restoration Committee in Humera, October 2025. Source: Social media.
Published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
This is a brilliant and intellectually rigorous analysis I admire how you dismantled the ‘legal fiction’ using actual historical proclamations and constitutional articles. We need more of this objective, fact-based perspective in our political discourse Thank you for providing such a detailed and legally grounded perspective on this complex issue
Tahir is a young & Genuine politician.He stands only for truth.I read all the document,it is clearly legal and based on true facts.
Not bad from a person who decided to be a pet for barbaric Abiye.
This piece reads more like a tirade against TPLF by a member of NMA, which makes it quite predictable in its pro-Amhara claim about Welkait / western Tigray. The author attempts to be legalistic about the issue by referencing various constitutional proclamations. However, he entirely avoids mention of the violent, extra-judicial actions by the Amharas in the ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans out of their homes. No surprise in his omission of this fact, being Amhara he would not want to incriminate his own people.
Another piece on The Welkait Quagmire here in Ethiopia Insight published March 2, 2026 provides a more sober reflection on the vexing problem, and possible paths forward.
The original sin of such elites lies in their refusal to confront the fundamental issue.
Withdraw your forces from constitutional Tigray. Only then can we live together in a legal, coequal, democratic, and brotherly manner. You know very well that if Tigray were to claim territory on historical grounds, it could point far beyond the present disputes—reaching back to domains that existed since the time of Axum. Instead, Tigrayans, guided by the TPLF, chose to act within the framework of the constitution rather than invoke imperial-era claims.
The reality is that the Prosperity Party (PP) will only use this issue as a pretext to subjugate Tigray—nothing more. The area is under occupation carried out in a genocidal manner, with the involvement of foreign forces invited by actors such as Amhara nationalists like Tahir. Areas such as Western Tigray are not territorial “claims” open to debate; they are part of Tigray. There is nothing disputable about that.
No constitution, no historical argument, and no political justification can stand in the way of condemning ethnic cleansing, treason, and genocide on such a scale.
Amhara will never accept TPLF and OLF’s ethnic based regional organization. Until the real fix comes Amhara should reclaim all the derg era four provinces to be incorporated in Amhara region.
Don’t expect us to fully accept your constitution you never defended while TPLF was in power for 27 years and Abie is in power for the last eight years.