Benishangul-Gumuz People's Democratic Unity Front

The Benishangul Gumuz People’s Democratic Unity Front (BGPDUF; Amharic: የቤንሻንጉልና ጉሙዝ ሕዝቦች ዴሞክራሲዊ አንድነት^?) is a political party in Ethiopia. In the most recent elections held 23 May 2010, the BGPDUF won 9 seats.^[1] In local elections held the same day, the BGPDUF won 98 of the 99 seats in the Benishangul-Gumuz parliament.^[2]

The BGPDUF emerged from a 1996 conference led by the former Deputy Prime Minister Tamrat Layne. Previous to the conference, relations between the dominant Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and its partner, the Benishangul People's Liberation Movement (BPLM) had grown strained, and the BPLM was ineffective due to internal factionalism. The conference announced its members had agreed that "all the parties should evaluate and cleanse themselves of 'OLF sympathisers', 'supporters of Sudanese interventionists' and 'corrupt officials'".^[3] Whereupon, under the direction of EPRDF cadres, members of not only the BPLM but the other five ethnic-based parties in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region, submitted to a grueling session of gimgema or self-criticism; those who were found to have admitted their weaknesses satisfactorily were allowed to enroll in the new parties being formed. As Asnake Kefale Adegehe explains:

First, the BPLM, which had had a pan-regional claim was reduced to the Bertha and was renamed the EBPDO. Second, the two distinct ethnic parties that claimed to represent; the Mao and the Komo were merged to establish the Mao-Komo People's Democratic Organisation (MKPDO). The Gumuz and Boro-Shinasha ethnic parties remained without much change. The four organisations were then brought together to form a new front modelled after the EPRDF and named the BGPDUF.^[4]

Previous election results

In the 2005 elections, the party won 8 seats, all from the Benishangul-Gumuz Region. The Deputy Chairman of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Affairs Committee in the following session of the Ethiopian Parliament was a member of the BGDUF.^[5]

In the 2000 Regional assembly elections, the BGDUF won 71 of 80 seats in Benishangul-Gumuz parliament.^[6] In the August 2005 Regional assembly elections, the party won 85 out of 99 seats in the Benishangul-Gumuz.^[7] In the 2008 by-elections for the Regional legislature, the BGPDUF won 5 seats.^[8]

Notes

1. Elections in Ethiopia, African Elections Database (accessed 2 March 2011)
2. 23 May 2010 Regional State Council Elections in Ethiopia, African Elections Database (accessed 2 March 2011)
3. Asnake Kefale Adegehe, Federalism and ethnic conflict in Ethiopia: a comparative study of the Somali and Benishangul-Gumuz regions Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden University, Doctoral thesis (2009), pp. 248f
4. Asnake Kefale Adegehe, Federalism and ethnic conflict in Ethiopia, p. 249
5. Ethiopian House of Peoples' Representatives Website
6. African Elections Database: 14 May & 31 August 2000 Regional State Council Elections in Ethiopia
7. African Elections Database: 15 May & 21 August 2005 Regional State Council Elections in Ethiopia
8. "The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia Official Result of the Local and By-Elections Held on April 13 and April 20, 2008", Walta Information Center, May 2008 (accessed 17 March 2009)