Benishangul-Gumuz People's Democratic Unity Front


The Benishangul Gumuz People’s Democratic Unity Front was a political party in Ethiopia. In the most recent elections held 23 May 2010, the BGPDUF won 9 seats. In local elections held the same day, the BGPDUF won 98 of the 99 seats in the Benishangul-Gumuz parliament.
The BGPDUF emerged from a 1996 conference led by the former Deputy Prime Minister Tamrat Layne. Previous to the conference, relations between the dominant Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front and its partner, the Benishangul People's Liberation Movement had grown strained, and the BPLM was ineffective due to internal factionalism. The conference announced its members had agreed that "all the parties should evaluate and cleanse themselves of 'OLF sympathisers', 'supporters of Sudanese interventionists' and 'corrupt officials'". Whereupon, under the direction of EPRDF cadres, members of not only the BPLM but the other five ethnic-based parties in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region, submitted to a grueling session of gimgema or self-criticism; those who were found to have admitted their weaknesses satisfactorily were allowed to enroll in the new parties being formed. As Asnake Kefale Adegehe explains:

Previous election results

In the 2005 elections, the party won 8 seats, all from the Benishangul-Gumuz Region. The Deputy Chairman of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Affairs Committee in the following session of the Ethiopian Parliament was a member of the BGDUF.
In the 2000 Regional assembly elections, the BGDUF won 71 of 80 seats in Benishangul-Gumuz parliament. In the August 2005 Regional assembly elections, the party won 85 out of 99 seats in the Benishangul-Gumuz. In the 2008 by-elections for the Regional legislature, the BGPDUF won 5 seats.
In December 2019, the party merged with the Afar National Democratic Party, the Amhara Democratic Party, the Ethiopian Somali People's Democratic Party, the Gambela People's Democratic Movement, the Hareri National League, the Oromo Democratic Party and the Southern Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement to form the Prosperity Party.