Tigray’s exclusion from Ethiopia’s June 1 general election followed the electoral board’s May 2025 revocation of the TPLF’s legal status as a party, stripping Tigray of its main vehicle for federal legislative representation before “unfavourable conditions” ever closed a single polling station. The TPLF has since restored its prewar legislative council in open defiance.
Analyst François Christophe of the Atlantic Council argues Abiy’s Red Sea rhetoric serves a second function beyond geopolitics: with “his legacy on the line” in an election year, Abiy “needs a unifying national cause” — one that draws attention from unresolved insurgencies grinding on in Amhara and Oromia. The International Crisis Group describes Eritrea’s outreach to its former TPLF enemy in similarly transactional terms: by backing Tigray, “Eritrea could establish a buffer” that keeps Ethiopian forces tied down locally rather than mobilized toward Assab.
Chatham House maps the wider architecture: Ethiopia’s UAE-backed tilt toward the RSF in Sudan sits opposite an Eritrea-Egypt axis aligned with Sudan’s army, meaning a renewed Ethiopia-Eritrea war would not stay local. It would activate a proxy front already open next door.
