Borkena
Toronto – National Movement of Amhara (NaMA), an ethnic Amhara Opposition party with a few seats in the Ethiopian Parliament, on Monday held its third party congress.
The party undertook its congress in Addis Ababa. Usually, the party congress was in Bahir Dar, seat of the Amhara regional state. It is unspecified if the decision to hold its congress in Addis Ababa was related to the security situation in the region. There have been at least two or three cases where the opposition parties find it difficult to hold their party congress in Addis Ababa. Hotels in the capital decline to reserve halls or government security officials harass members – that was not the case with NaMA.
The party reported that it has elected Belete Molla as its Chairperson. He has been serving in the Abiy Ahmed cabinet as the Minister of Innovation and Technology since 2021. Notably, A parliamentary audit finding indicated, in late March 2025, that the ministry mismanaged budget and over half a billion Ethiopian birr spending will have to be explained to the parliament.
NaMA also elected Melkamu Tsegaye deputy chairperson of the party. Damtew Tessema is named head of political affairs while Yusuf Ibrahim secured Legal Affairs head of the Party. Gashaw Mersha will serve as Public relations.
Forty permanent central committee members and five alternate central committee members were also elected.
In his speech at the congress, Belete highlighted the challenges the party has been experiencing. Relations between the leadership and the party members has not been based on respect and listening to one another which he said has caused a serious challenge.
Once a popular – still one of the youngest political parties in Ethiopia , it has lost a significant portion of its support base in the Amhara region of Ethiopia. It is accused of transforming itself from opposition to an ally and supporter of Prime Minister Abiy’s ruling Prosperity Party.
Christian Tadele, who used to be spokesperson of NaMA, was thrown to jail in August 2023 as the Federal government declared a state of emergency to undertake war in the Amhara region of Ethiopia. At the time, Christian was a member of the Federal parliament and chair of the parliamentary standing committee for Audit. His immunity was lifted six months after he was arrested.
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