Ethiopian Democratic Union
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The Ethiopian Democratic Union or EDU, also known as Teranafit (formerly a separate group based in Shire before it merged with the EDU), was the oldest of the political parites that formed in opposition to the Derg regime of Ethiopia.
Founded in the aftermath of the revolution and the military coup that toppled Emperor Haile Selassie in September 1974, the EDU professed a conservative agenda. Established under the tutelage of the hereditary Prince of Tigrai, Ras Mengesha Seyoum, the EDU was made up of various elements that included land owners who were opposed to the nationalization of their land holdings, monarchists, high ranking military officers displaced by the mutineers who had led the coup against the Emperor, and conservative and centrist opponents of the Marxist-Leninist Derg. From mid-1976 into 1977, the EDU broadcast radio programs into Ethiopia from the Sudan, and also launched a military campaign into Begemder that almost captured Gondar. Although democratic ideals were voiced by the party, and vaguely promoted a constitutional monarchy, it never made its political program clear, a failing which eventually weakened the EDU when its various factions began to diverge politically. Ethnic rivalries between the Tigrean loyalists of Ras Mangasha and the non-Tigrean elements of the EDU also widened the split.
Other rebel movements politically opposed to the EDU, which included the Tigrayan Peoples' Liberation Front in Tigray and the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party in Begemder, fought against them and helped the Derg forces push the EDU out of the territories it held. In 1978, the leadership of the EDU split due to serious political differences that had developed between them and it withdrew from the armed struggle against the Derg regime. It remained active among Ethiopian exile communities, particularly in Europe and in the Sudan.
The EDU reorganized in Addis Ababa as a legal opposition party after the TPLF led the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front to power. It later merged with the Ethiopian Democratic Party and formed the Ethiopian Democratic Unity Party (EDUP). The EDUP is among the parties that joined together to form the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces, one of the two largest opposition parties in Ethiopia.
