The former Ethiopian President Negasso Gidada is to join forces with dissidents from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF, hard core of the governing coalition) led by Gebru Asrat, the former President of the Tigray Regional State and present leader of the Arena Tigray for Democracy and Sovereignty party, to create an opposition group called Medrek with the aim of jointly participating in future elections. Indeed, none of these various parties based along ethnic or regional lines is in a position on its own to field candidates for the whole of the country. Medrek, which means platform for democratic consultation in Ethiopia, also gathers the former Minister for Defence, the Tigrayan Seye Abraha, the Oromo Federal Democratic Movement (ODFM) led by Bulcha Demeksa, the UEDF led by Beyene Petros and the Somali Democratic Forces Coalition.