This Window Will Not Stay Open: What Tigray Must Do Now

This is not just another political moment. It is a decisive window in which Tigray must either reassert its capacity to act or
risk losing it under conditions it does not control.

Before going into the details, I want to be clear about one thing: what should we expect from these new emergency power structures that Tigray is now putting in place?

In my opinion, this is not a period for study, experimentation, or slow institutional learning. We have already passed that phase. The time we are entering is a compressed window where deliberation must immediately translate into action.

Yes, there may be negotiations. Yes, there may be processes that require engagement. But even in those cases, the time scale we should be thinking in is not weeks and months. It is hours and days.

Every structure that emerges from this process, the Baito, the executive, every committee, every coordination mechanism, must operate with this urgency. Day and night work is not an exaggeration in this context. It is the minimum requirement.

We have had enough of marathon meetings that end with statements, frameworks, and deferred decisions. That approach belonged to a different phase. What is required now is concrete action, measurable steps, and visible movement.

This opinion piece is therefore not just an analysis. It is also a statement of expectation, from my perspective, of what these structures must deliver under current conditions. At the same time, I remain open to engaging with alternative views, particularly those that present more actionable or grounded approaches than the ones I have outlined here.

If that is the case, then those plans must not remain internal. They must be translated into action quickly and made visible through results.

Because whether we feel it or not, time is already moving.

It may look like we still have some time ahead of us. But in reality, we do not have the luxury of waiting.

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I think we are entering a decisive phase in Tigray’s political trajectory.

In the coming days, the reconstitution of the 2020 regional Baito is expected to take shape. My reading is that this is not a routine institutional adjustment. It marks the beginning of a transition from a diffused and fragmented political structure toward a form of authority that can actually carry responsibility under current conditions.

What follows this step will matter even more.

An executive structure, likely operating under emergency-like conditions and hopefully inclusive of all መኸተ forces, will emerge from this Baito. Its role cannot be symbolic. It will be expected to define priorities, coordinate action, and position Tigray within a rapidly shifting political environment.

That environment is already converging around a critical reference point: June.

June is not only a date in the federal electoral calendar. It is a structural turning point. If it proceeds as planned, it will likely consolidate political authority at the federal level, narrow the space for negotiation, and harden the environment in which unresolved questions central to Tigray will be addressed.

But even beyond the election cycle, June carries a deeper weight for Tigray.

It marks a threshold for our people who have endured years of displacement under conditions that are, by any measure, unimaginable. The question is no longer whether this suffering is acknowledged. The question is whether there is a political and institutional capacity to begin reversing it.

I do not think anyone serious should pretend that the displacement crisis can be solved in its entirety before June. That would not be realistic. But I also do not think Tigray can afford another political cycle in which the displaced remain merely a subject of speeches, statements, and humanitarian appeals.

We must demonstrate a shift: from managing suffering to reversing it.

That shift may begin modestly, but it must begin concretely. It must begin through an enforceable demand for return, an organized documentation of displaced households, a clear identification of areas of origin, a public timetable for phased return where conditions permit, and an international mechanism that verifies whether return is being enabled or obstructed.

If the post-June environment becomes more rigid, the already limited space to return our people to their homes may begin to close. This is why I believe June is not just a political deadline. It is also a humanitarian and moral threshold.

Before June, there is a narrow window within which Tigray must attempt to secure what can still be secured, clarify what must be clarified, and begin to act on what can no longer be postponed.

This is why the current moment cannot be approached as ordinary politics.

At this stage, what matters is not only what we think, but what we are able to do.

Now, let us move to the structure of the moment itself.

When I say that Tigray is reconstituting the 2020 Baito, I am not reading this as a return to past governance. I am reading it as the formation of an emergency political foundation, one that is meant to restore the minimum capacity required for Tigray to act, decide, negotiate, legislate, and prepare under constraint.

This distinction is important.

Because if this is treated as a routine institutional process, then the entire strategic purpose of the move will be diluted. The reconstituted Baito should not simply exist as a symbol of restored legitimacy. It must become the legislative and political anchor of an emergency phase.

The question is not whether the structure is perfect. The question is whether there exists any other structure, at this moment, that can carry authority, coordinate decisions, and move with the speed required by the environment.

At present, I do not see one.

So the logic of reconstituting the Baito, and building an executive that draws its mandate from it, is not about institutional nostalgia. It is about restoring functional authority in a situation where diffusion itself has become a risk.

This is where I think the responsibilities of the emergency Baito must be understood clearly.

The emergency Baito should first establish the political and legal foundation of the transition. It must define the scope of the emergency authority, clarify the relationship between the Baito and the executive, and determine how decisions will be made under extraordinary conditions. It should not leave these issues vague, because vagueness at this stage will immediately become a source of confusion, manipulation, and delay.

In my opinion, one of its first tasks should be to adopt an emergency governing framework. This framework should define what the Baito can decide, what the executive can implement, how urgent decisions are approved, how accountability is maintained, and how extraordinary powers are prevented from becoming arbitrary powers. Emergency authority must be strong, but it must also be disciplined.

This distinction matters because Tigray does not need a chaotic emergency structure. It needs an organized one.

The Baito should also establish a clear decision-making threshold for major questions. Routine governance may be handled by normal majority procedures, but questions involving territorial integrity, war and peace, security arrangements, emergency legislation, and fundamental negotiations with the federal government should require a higher level of consensus. In my view, this is where the idea of a super-majority becomes important.

A simple majority may be enough to control an institution. But it may not be enough to carry a people through an existential transition.

Under current conditions, legitimacy cannot come only from numerical control. It must come from a structure that forces broader alignment among መኸተ forces. This does not mean weakening the elected majority. It means using the elected majority to create a stronger and more inclusive political foundation.

The Baito should also address vacant seats carefully. Vacant seats should not become a procedural weakness or a source of endless argument. They should be treated as part of the emergency political settlement. If handled wisely, they can become a mechanism for strengthening unity, allowing legitimate መኸተ forces and other Tigrayan political actors to be represented in a way that supports coherence rather than fragmentation.

I am not suggesting that such arrangements are easy. But I think the moment requires creative constitutional and political interpretation, not mechanical rigidity. Under extraordinary conditions, the purpose of institutional interpretation should be to preserve the sovereignty of the people, maintain functional authority, and prevent paralysis.

The Baito must also issue a clear mandate to the executive. It should not simply appoint or endorse an executive and then disappear into symbolic existence. It must define what the executive is expected to achieve before June, what it must report back, and what indicators will be used to assess progress.

This means the Baito should create a short emergency priority agenda, not a long development plan.

That agenda, in my view, should include at least the following: forcing immediate and verifiable implementation of Pretoria, beginning concrete action on displaced people, reasserting Tigray’s federal representation and budgetary rights, clarifying Tigray’s position on all federal laws and proclamations passed during its forced exclusion from effective federal participation, and preparing the legal and security instruments required if the federal center continues to delay or obstruct.

This is not ordinary parliamentary work.

It is emergency statecraft.

Now, once this authority begins to take shape, the next issue is what the executive must do and how fast.

I prefer to think of the coming executive not merely as a cabinet, but as a መኸተ executive. By መኸተ, I do not mean slogan or emotional mobilization. I mean an organized survival posture that brings together political, military, administrative, economic, diplomatic, and social capacities under one coherent direction.

This executive should be inclusive, but not for decoration. Inclusion should serve function. It should bring into the structure those forces that can contribute to survival, return, negotiation, reconstruction, documentation, diplomacy, security, and social mobilization.

In my view, the መኸተ executive must have a disciplined mandate.

Its first mandate should be to convert Pretoria from a political reference into an enforceable implementation matrix. This means no more general appeals. It should specify the action required, the responsible actor, the timetable, the verification body, the consequence of non-compliance, and the reporting mechanism. Pretoria should no longer remain a document people invoke when convenient. It must become a checklist against which the federal government and all relevant actors are measured.

Its second mandate should be the displaced. The executive must make the return of displaced people the center of its political and diplomatic agenda. It should establish a dedicated emergency commission or task structure for displacement, return, property documentation, household registration, humanitarian coordination, and legal claims. This structure should work with local communities, civil society, international humanitarian actors, and diaspora technical capacity.

The question should no longer be only whether displaced people should return. Of course they should. The operational question is: who are they, where are their homes, what documentation exists, what conditions prevent return, who is responsible for the obstruction, and what mechanism can verify progress or failure?

Its third mandate should be territorial integrity. The executive must prepare the political, legal, diplomatic, and security case for the restoration of Tigray’s sovereign territory. This should not be done through scattered statements. It should be organized into a structured dossier: constitutional status, administrative history, census and demographic data, land records, electoral records, displacement evidence, atrocity documentation, and current control structures on the ground.

This is where Tigray must prepare itself before any future negotiation, mediation, or international arbitration. Tigray should not wait for a forum to be created before preparing its case. The case must be ready before the forum arrives.

Its fourth mandate should be federal representation and institutional normalization. Tigray cannot simply be told to return to the federal system as if nothing happened. A lot has happened. Tigray has been absent, excluded, attacked, blockaded, displaced, and administratively disrupted. Many federal laws, proclamations, institutional decisions, budgetary actions, and military-security arrangements have taken shape during a period when Tigray was not properly represented or was politically coerced.

The executive must therefore prepare a federal re-entry audit. This should identify what federal decisions affect Tigray, which laws and proclamations require review, what budget deficits accumulated since 2020, what representation has been denied, and what institutional guarantees are required before Tigray can meaningfully function within the federal order again.

Its fifth mandate should be economic and social stabilization under siege-like conditions. If the federal center continues to delay implementation, Tigray must not remain economically exposed. The executive should prepare emergency measures on food security, internal revenue, diaspora support channels, trade routes, service restoration, public salary obligations, banking access, movement of goods and services, and protection of vulnerable populations.

Its sixth mandate should be diplomacy. Tigray must communicate directly and coherently with the international community. This does not mean bypassing formal realities recklessly. It means ensuring that Tigray’s position is understood clearly, consistently, and with evidence. The international community should hear not only that Pretoria is not implemented, but exactly how it is not implemented, who is obstructing it, what consequences are being produced, and what verification mechanism is required.

Its seventh mandate should be security readiness. I am not reading this as a call for reckless escalation. But I do believe that a people facing unresolved occupation, displacement, and repeated threats cannot depend only on appeals. Security readiness must be disciplined, politically controlled, and tied to the restoration of sovereignty and protection of civilians.

This is where the relationship between the Baito, the executive, and TDF becomes critical. Security decisions must not drift into fragmented command or political improvisation. They must be anchored in the emergency authority and connected to clear political objectives.

This brings us back to June, but now in its full strategic sense.

June is not just an election.

It is a political moment around which actors are already structuring expectations, alignments, and timelines. If it proceeds as planned, it will likely redefine the political environment in ways that are not easily reversible.

But that assumption, that June will proceed exactly as planned, may itself be too simplistic.

The current environment is not stable. It is layered with unresolved conflicts, competing interests, and fragile arrangements, both within Ethiopia and across the region. Under such conditions, treating June as a fixed point may not reflect the full range of possible outcomes.

This does not mean strategy should be built on disruption.

But it does mean strategy should not be built on a single assumed timeline.

So for Tigray, the question is not only what must be achieved before June.

It is also how to position itself across different possible trajectories: if the election proceeds as planned, if it is delayed, or if the broader political environment shifts in ways that alter its significance.

In all these scenarios, one principle must remain constant.

Tigray’s leverage will not come from reacting to events. It will come from shaping the conditions under which those events unfold.

Now this brings us to the most important strategic point.

There is a tendency, even among serious observers, to think in sequence.

First, push for the implementation of Pretoria.

Then, if that fails, consider other options.

At first glance, this sounds reasonable. But under current conditions, I think it is strategically weak.

Why?

Because it assumes that time is neutral.

It is not.

Time, in the current environment, is being used actively by the federal center to delay unresolved issues, consolidate internal control, and structure the political landscape in its favor ahead of June.

So if Tigray approaches this moment sequentially, it will always be one step behind.

What is required instead is parallel action.

I see this as two tracks that must move at the same time.

Track A is the immediate and forceful push for the implementation of the Pretoria agreement.

But this must not remain at the level of general calls.

It must be transformed into an operational demand: clear actions, defined timelines, independent verification mechanisms, guarantees of non-repetition, the return of displaced populations as a central priority, and a structured process for accountability, including the atrocities committed in Western Tigray and other affected areas.

And critically, this process cannot rely solely on engagement with Addis Ababa.

It must involve direct and structured communication with the international community.

Because without external pressure and verification, implementation will remain indefinitely deferred.

Now, at the exact same time, not after, Tigray must activate Track B.

Track B is preparation.

Not rhetorical preparation, but structured preparation for the possibility that Pretoria will not be implemented in any meaningful way.

This includes establishing legal frameworks for emergency governance, preparing economic stabilization mechanisms under continued constraint, positioning diplomatically, ensuring security readiness aligned with the objective of restoring sovereignty and territorial integrity, structuring regional security understandings where necessary, and building the institutional capacity required to act independently if required.

This is not about escalation.

It is about ensuring that Tigray is not structurally dependent on the decisions of others in matters that directly affect its survival.

And this is where the shift in thinking must happen.

Tigray cannot afford to negotiate from expectation.

It must negotiate from preparation.

This is the balance that creates leverage.

If it only pushes for implementation without preparation, it invites delay.

If it only prepares without pushing for implementation, it risks isolation.

The strength comes from doing both, simultaneously.

Now let me bring this back to the urgency of the moment.

Before June, Tigray must attempt to re-anchor Pretoria in enforceable terms, reassert its position on territorial integrity, begin addressing the condition of its displaced population through concrete steps, re-establish functional representation and coordination capacity, and ensure that it enters the next phase of the political process with sufficient leverage to influence what follows.

Because if this window passes without movement, the post-June environment will likely be more rigid, more centralized, and less responsive.

And this is where I want to leave the reader with a simple but important thought.

Strategy built on a single assumed timeline is not strategy.

It is exposure.

So the real question is not whether June will happen as planned.

The real question is whether Tigray can re-establish enough internal coherence and external leverage, within a limited time, to shape what comes next, regardless of how June unfolds.

That is the moment we are in.

ትግራይ ትስዕር！ሰላም ንህዝብና！