New Mekelle Mayor Shishay Amare Tells AFP Tigray Will Hold Elections Within Six Months and Says Western Tigray Will Be Settled Through “Constitutional Processes”

Zegabi.com
News and Articles

A street in Mekelle with a man driving a horse-drawn cart loaded with furniture, a red truck behind him, and shops and clinic signs along the road.

A street in Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray region, in 2016. [O.Mustafin / Wikimedia Commons, CC0] [file photo]

The new mayor of Mekelle, appointed by the federal government in Addis Ababa last week, told AFP on Monday that the caretaker administration now running Tigray will hold elections within six months, and that the dispute over Western Tigray will be left for a later date.

Dr. Shishay Amare was named mayor of the Tigray capital on Friday, Oct. 16, when the Office of the Prime Minister announced a six-month caretaker administration for the region and listed five officials to lead it. Speaking to AFP, he said the job of the new administration was to prepare the ground for a vote. “Our role is to create the right conditions for elections by ensuring peace and stability across Tigray,” Shishay said. “I am confident that this will be done within six months, according to our plan.”

He said the administration also had to deal with the damage of the fighting that broke out on Sept. 23 between federal forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), according to AFP. “We must also make sure humanitarian aid reaches people in need, help people recover from the psychological effects of the conflict, restart economic activities and reopen markets,” he told the agency.

On Western Tigray, the fertile area claimed by both Tigray and the neighboring Amhara region, Shishay said the question would wait. “Our main task is to help displaced people return with their dignity respected. Questions about territorial integrity will be resolved through constitutional processes,” he said. AFP noted that around a million people remain displaced from the 2020 to 2022 war in northern Ethiopia, which killed an estimated 600,000 people, according to African Union estimates.

The mayor spoke as fighting had not fully ended. A spokesman for what AFP described as pro-government forces told the agency that some residual clashes were still taking place around the town of Aksum. The Europe External Programme with Africa (EEPA), a Brussels-based group that publishes daily situation reports, said in its Oct. 19 report that federal troops and the Tigray Peace Force had entered Aksum after Tigrayan fighters withdrew to the surrounding mountains.

The caretaker administration was set up under a decision by the House of Federation and the Council of Ministers, the Office of the Prime Minister said on Friday. Besides Shishay, it named Asefa Abraha Hagos to lead the administration, Dr. Tewodros Aregay for the economy and reconstruction, Brig. Gen. Gebreegziabher Beyene Hailu for security and peace, and Redae Halefom for political affairs. A statement signed “Government of Tigray” and attributed to the TPLF-led authorities who ran the region until federal forces retook Mekelle this month rejected the new administration as illegitimate, as Zegabi reported on Saturday.

Tigray did not take part in the national parliamentary election in June, which returned Abiy Ahmed and his Prosperity Party to power with a large majority, AFP noted.

Some of the first visible steps under the new arrangement have come from the universities. Prof. Kindeya Gebrehiwot, a former president of Mekelle University whose X bio describes him as an adviser with the rank of state minister at the federal Ministry of Education, wrote in Tigrigna on Sunday (@ProfKindeya) that he had come back to Mekelle after 18 months to prepare for universities in Tigray to restart work, and that the leaders of all the universities and residents of the city had welcomed him. He thanked the community for its role in keeping the institutions from being looted “በቲ ዝነበረ ናይ ፀጥታ ክፍተት” (“during the security gap that existed,” in Zegabi’s translation) and called on everyone to work so that they could run at full capacity. EEPA’s report also said Mekelle, Adigrat, Aksum and Raya universities had announced plans to resume teaching.

On X, some users welcomed the appointment and Shishay’s comments. When the appointments were announced on Friday, Dr. Ambachew Assefa (@Ambachew_Assefa) wrote in Amharic, “በጣም በጣምና በጣም ትክክለኛ ሹመት!” (“A very, very, very right appointment!” in Zegabi’s translation). Replying to a post about the mayor on Monday, Genene Geda (@GedaGg7) wrote that Shishay “is speaking as mayor of Mekele, & it is clear that peacebuilding is the strategic goal,” adding that “giving ppl hope for a better tomorrow through visible, positive change today is one meaningful way to build peace.” Zegabi has not verified the claims made in these posts.

Sources