Last week was not business as usual for the TPLF - a senior member of the coalitions in the ruling EPRDF. The party lost the support of its allies on its stand in parliament to stop the establishment of the Administrative Demarcations & Identity Issues Commission.

In parliament, the trend of the legislative body was to approve any legislation without much debate or presentation. Most of the bills submitted to parliament, represented by four coalition parties and its allies, usually receive unanimous approval due to the party’s leadership role and its political culture of democratic centralism - deciding centrally and binding all members.

Out of 350 members, who attended the Thursday session, the entire opposition against the establishment of the commission, 33 votes, came from TPLF MPs, who opposed the bill on the grounds of its “unconstitutionality”.

All TPLF MPs raised their hands in unison from the right side of parliament, voting to stop the formation of the Commission.

Represented with 38 seats in the legislative body, the TPLF members voted together absent of former government whips Asmelash W. Selassie, Getachew Reda, Abay Tshaye, Debretsion G. Micheal (PhD), Abraham Tekeste and Addisalem Balema (PhD), who were not in attendance.

Drafted by the Office of the Prime Minister, the proclamation was tabled to parliament for legislation after it was unanimously approved by the Council of Ministers, which includes two members from TPLF.

Apparently, and signaling the winds of change in parliament, the vote was not unanimous and the customary adherence to democratic centralism seems to have vanished.

Kjetil Tronvoll, professor of peace and conflict studies, a political anthropologist and an African political analyst, shares this view.

“The contested Border & Identity Commission passed against TPLF votes ........ which signals breach of EPRDF coherence on the core policy issue,” he tweeted immediately after the bill passed the parliamentary vote receiving 313 voters in favour.

The legislation experience of the Commission proclamation is one of three recent incidents in parliament where the current administration faced opposition votes.

The other two cases where opposing votes were registered was during legislation to enact a driving license law and the imposition of the emergency decree in the pre-Abiy era. Those two votes received 69 and 88 opposing votes, respectively.

In the past two incidents, the naysayers are also from a single party, which vigorously lobbied and voted against the bills raising technical issues and effects of the bills, rather than constitutional questions, as in the current case.

The new establishment of the Commission is against the Constitution as it will have the same responsibility with the House of Federation, according to Atsebeha Aregawi (MP-TPLF).

The core duty of the new Commission, which will be reporting to the Office of the Prime Minister, will be providing alternative recommendations to the House of the Federation and the Prime Minister by studying problems and conflicts related to the administrative boundaries demarcation and issues of identity.

Its additional roles include collecting public opinion on issues of administrative boundaries, preparing a strategy and detailed plan, initiating the policy framework of administrative boundaries and facilitating ways in which conflicts that arise over administrative boundaries can be resolved. All these assessments and recommendations will be forwarded to the parlament and Prime Minister for decisions.

It is not the first time where such institutions have been established in the country. During the Dergue, there was the Institute for the Study of Ethiopian Nationalities formed in 1983 as a political research bureau to conduct research work as an input for a draft constitution. One among the six divisions under the Institute was a unit that studied the ethnic demographics of the country for the first time.