The Ethiopian Democratic Union (

Amharic Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...

: የኢትዮጵያ ዴሞክራሲያዊ ህብረት) or EDU, also known as Teranafit (formerly a separate group based in

Shire Shire () is a traditional term for an administrative division of land in Great Britain and some other English-speaking countries. It is generally synonymous with county (such as Cheshire and Worcestershire). British counties are among the oldes ...

before it merged with the EDU), was one of the political parties that formed in opposition to the

Derg The Derg or Dergue (, ), officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the military junta that ruled Ethiopia, including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when they formally "Civil government, civilianized" the ...

regime of

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

. It merged with the Ethiopian Democratic Party to form the Ethiopian Democratic Unity Party.

Armed struggle

Founded in the aftermath of the revolution and the military coup that toppled Emperor

Haile Selassie Haile Selassie I (born Tafari Makonnen or ''Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles#Lij, Lij'' Tafari; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles, Rege ...

in September 1974, the EDU professed a conservative agenda. Established under the tutelage of the hereditary Prince of

Tigray The Tigray Region (or simply Tigray; officially the Tigray National Regional State) is the northernmost Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob people, Irob and Kunama people. I ...

, Ras

Mengesha Seyoum ''Le'ul Ras'' Mengesha Seyoum (Amharic: መንገሻ ሥዩም; born 7 December 1927) is a member of the imperial family of the Ethiopian Empire. In 1974, the monarchy was abolished by the Derg, a Communism, communist military Military dictatorsh ...

, the EDU was made up of various elements that included land owners who were opposed to the nationalization of their land holdings, monarchists, high-ranking military officers displaced by the mutineers who had led the coup against the Emperor, and conservative and centrist opponents of the Marxist-Leninist Derg. From mid-1976 into 1977, the EDU broadcast radio programs into Ethiopia from the Sudan, and also launched a military campaign into

Begemder Begemder (; also known as Gondar or Gonder) was a province in northwest Ethiopia. The alternative names come from its capital during the 20th century, Gondar. Etymology A plausible source for the name ''Bega'' is that the word means "dry" in t ...

that almost captured

Gondar Gondar, also spelled Gonder (Amharic: ጎንደር, ''Gonder'' or ''Gondär''; formerly , ''Gʷandar'' or ''Gʷender''), is a city and woreda in Ethiopia. Located in the North Gondar Zone of the Amhara Region, Gondar is north of Lake Tana on ...

. Although democratic ideals were voiced by the party, and vaguely promoted a constitutional monarchy, it never made its political program clear, a failing which eventually weakened the EDU when its various factions began to diverge politically. Ethnic rivalries between the Tigrean loyalists of Ras Mangasha and the non-Tigrean elements of the EDU also widened the split. Other rebel movements politically opposed to the EDU, which included the Tigrayan Peoples' Liberation Front in Tigray and the

Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) (), informally known as Ihapa (), is the first modern political party in Ethiopia. Established in April 1972, it aimed to turn Ethiopia into a democratic republic. Both the EPRP and another pa ...

in Begemder, fought against them and helped the Derg forces push the EDU out of the territories it held. In 1978, the leadership of the EDU split due to serious political differences that had developed between them and it withdrew from the armed struggle against the Derg regime. It remained active among Ethiopian exile communities, particularly in Europe and in the Sudan. The group was responsible for a

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

against

Ethiopian Jews Beta Israel, or Ethiopian Jews, is a Jewish group originating from the territory of the Amhara and Tigray regions in northern Ethiopia, where they are spread out across more than 500 small villages over a wide territory, alongside predominant ...

in 1978.

Opposition party

The EDU reorganized in

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; ,) is the capital city of Ethiopia, as well as the regional state of Oromia. With an estimated population of 2,739,551 inhabitants as of the 2007 census, it is the largest city in the country and the List of cities in Africa b ...

as a legal opposition party after the TPLF led the

Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF; ) was an ethnic federalist political coalition in Ethiopia that existed from 1989 to 2019. It consisted of four political parties: Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), Amhara ...

to power. It was at this time the party assumed a pan-Ethiopian liberal republican ideology. The party had a representative at the July 1991 London conference which led to the establishment of the

Transitional Government of Ethiopia The Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) was an era established immediately after the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) seized power from the Marxist-Leninist People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) in 1991. ...

.Aregawi Berhe, ''A Political history of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (1975-1991)'' (Los Angeles: Tsehai, 2009), p. 331 However some small factions continued to resist the EPRDF, particularly in

province.

Merger

In September 2003, the EDU merged with the Ethiopian Democratic Party, becoming the United Ethiopian Democratic Party. Seyoum Mengesha became the party's honorary chairman, but played little role in the party administration, living in exile, and the post was quietly abolished.

References

{{Authority control Defunct political parties in Ethiopia Factions of the Ethiopian Civil War Political parties established in 1974 Rebel groups in Ethiopia Anti-communist parties Conservative parties in Africa Monarchist parties