It has been more than two years since the new regime led by Dr. Abiy took power Ethiopia. Since then, Ethiopia’s political and constitutional landscape has totally changed for the worse.

The regime has started to institutionalize an autocratic and a one-man dictatorial rule. It has declared war on opposition groups and individuals all over the country especially in Oromia, Amhara and Southern Ethiopia regional states. Two-third of the country remains under undeclared and therefore, illegal state of emergency governed by a military command post. Consequently, hundreds have been killed. Thousand have been detained. It has literally dismantled the federal states and is appointing, replacing, reshuffling officials both at the states and federal levels at will. The regime is working tirelessly to destabilize Tigrai, the only state that maintained relative peace and normalcy.

In a bid to prolong its reign of power indefinitely, the regime has manipulated the parliamentary procedure to unilaterally postponed the 2020 national elections. In so doing  it has reduced all federal institutions including the parliament, the courts, the media and the security apparatus into mere instruments to consolidate the one-man rule.

In response to the governments’ flagrant violation of the constitution and the constitutional order, the Government of Tigray Regional State, Tigrean members of Federal parliament, intellectuals in the country and the public at large, had consistently expressed their concern and warned that the behavior of regime would not only jeopardize the democratic order, but also ignite civil war that could lead to the disintegration of the country.

Having failed to mitigate the constitutional and political crisis at a federal level, the Government of Tigrai, is left with no alternative, but to exercise its right to self-administration under article 39 of the constitution. Consistent with this, the parliament of the regional state had unanimously adopted a resolution to hold the regional elections in Tigray on or before October 5, 2020.

We the undersigned Ethiopians support the decision of the Regional Parliament to hold the regional election and demand the Ethiopian Election board to fulfill its duty of supervising the election as stipulated in Article 102 of the constitution