The Assimba Democratic Party ( ti, ዓሲምባ ዴሞክራሲያዊ ፖርቲ, ADP) is an opposition party in the
Tigray Region
The Tigray Region, officially the Tigray National Regional State, is the northernmost regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob, and Kunama people. Its capital and largest city is Mekelle. Tigray ...
of
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
.
Creation
The Assimba Democratic Party was created in October 2019 and officially registered with the
National Election Board of Ethiopia
The National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) () is an autonomous federal government agency which supervises the national elections of Ethiopia. The NEBE was established by Proclamation number 64/1992, and answers to the House of Peoples' R ...
(NEBE). Asgedom was one of the founding members.
Name
''
Borkena'' suggested that the name ''Assimba'' represents nostalgia for the location in the Tigray Region of a former military training ground used in the late 1970s by the
Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party
The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) ( am, የኢትዮጵያ ሕዝባዊ አብዮታዊ ፓርቲ, Ye-Ītyōṗṗyā Həzbāwī Abyotawi Party), informally known as Ihapa, is the first modern political party in Ethiopia, esta ...
.
Policies
At its creation in October 2019, Asgedom stated that the status of the Eritrean–Ethiopian border, negotiated in the
Algiers Agreement in 2000, was a concern for the Assimba Democratic Party and that the status of
Welkait
Welkait (also spelled Wolkait or Wolqayt; is a woreda which was historically part of the northern Amhara region of Gonder in Ethiopia. Following the fall of the communist Derg regime and ascension to power of the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front ...
and
Raya Azebo
Raya Azebo (simply known as Raya; is a district in the Amhara of Ethiopia. Located at the eastern edge of the Ethiopian highlands, the administrative center of this district is Mekoni. Other towns in Raya Azebo include Alemata, Weyra Wuha, ...
was also a priority.
The ADP stated that it supports "good governance, equity in infrastructure development, broadening the political space in Tigray, improving the quality of education and fighting unemployment". The ADP described itself as
social democratic in contrast to the "revolutionary democracy" of the
Tigray People's Liberation Front
The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF; ti, ህዝባዊ ወያነ ሓርነት ትግራይ, lit=Popular Struggle for the Freedom of Tigray), also called the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, is a left-wing ethnic nationalist paramilitar ...
(TPLF).
''
Ethiopia Insight
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the no ...
'' describes the ADP as mainly based in the
Irob woreda and representing the interests of the
Irob people
The Irob people ( Ge'ez: ኢሮብ ''ʾirōb'', also spelled Erob) are an ethnic group who live in a predominantly highland, mountainous area by the same name in northeastern Tigray Region, Ethiopia. They speak the Saho language. Most of them pro ...
who mostly live in disputed Eritrean–Ethiopian border areas.
2020 Tigray regional election
The ADP participated in the
2020 Tigray regional election in which the TPLF won all 152 contested seats. In a September decision by the Tigrayan Regional Council, opposition parties were allotted sixteen seats, in order to provide a voice for the opposition against the 190 seats held by the TPLF. The ADP received one of the newly created seats.
References
{{Ethiopia political parties
Ethnic political parties in Ethiopia
Political parties established in 2019