Workers' Party of Ethiopia - The Formation of The Vanguard Party

The Formation of The Vanguard Party

The Workers' Party of Ethiopia was finally established on September 12, 1984, to mark the tenth anniversary of the revolution. The COPWE was dissolved and the WPE took its place. The Central Committee was expanded to 183 members, with party congresses every five years. Mengistu became general secretary.

The WPE's Politburo, which replaced the COPWE's Executive Committee as Ethiopia's chief decision making body, had eleven members, seven of whom were drawn from the Derg and the remaining four being civilian ideologues and technocrats. Generally, Mengistu's wishes prevailed over any opposition. The nepotism involved in the selection of Politburo members meant that opposition to Mengistu was usually marginal anyway, making the entire council more of a mouthpiece for Mengistu's wishes than a legitimate government body.

At a national level, membership of the WPE was heavily slanted towards soldiers and members of certain ethnic groups that had, historically, endorsed the concept of a unified "greater Ethiopia", such as the Tigray and Amhara. However, at regional and local levels, ethnicity and military service became less relevant, with large numbers of civilians and members of various ethnicities in positions of power.

The WPE's position as "formulator of the country's development process and the leading force of the state and in society" was enshrined into law by the 1987 Ethiopian constitution, which also dissolved the Derg and renamed the country the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The constitution gave the party more political power than the government itself, with local party leaders given almost free rein provided their policies did not conflict with Addis Ababa's.