Creation
Arena Tigray was created by Gebru Asrat in the early 2000s, when he left the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. Addis Fortune counts Arena Tigray as the second oldest political party in Tigray Region.
Leadership
Arena’s first leader was Gebru Asrat. In 2017, at Arena’s fourth congress, Abraha Desta, a philosophy lecturer who had spent two years in prison under TPLF rule, was elected as the new chair.
As of March 2021, Amdom Gebreselassie was head of public relations for Arena Tigray. He held the position of vice head of the Public Relations Bureau of the Transitional Government of Tigray until mid-March 2021, when he was dismissed by the federal government for publicly calling for legal action against perpetrators of sexual violence in the Tigray War and for attributing war crimes in the Tigray War to Amhara Region security forces and Eritrean Defence Forces.