Tamirat Layne

Tamrat Layne (born 1955) is an Ethiopian former politician and a converted born-again Christian. During the 1980s, he was a leader of the Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement (the forerunner of the Amhara National Democratic Movement), one of the groups that fought against Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in the Ethiopian Civil War.

Tamrat Layne was born in 1955 and raised by a single mother in Addis Ababa. He led the Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement during the 1980s, fighting against Mengistu Haile Mariam in the Ethiopian Civil War. In an interview in 1988, he acknowledged that the goals of his movement were similar to that of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, such as its approach to national self-determination and foreign affairs. A self proclaimed atheist, he believed that “freedom comes out of the barrel of the gun.”

When Mengistu was overthrown in 1991, Tamrat Layne became one of the three-man EPRDF-TPLF junta ruling the country and then in the democratically elected government, the other members being Meles Zenawi (President) and Siye Abraha (Minister of Defence). His position was Prime Minister of the Transitional Government, in which capacity he served from June 6, 1991 until August 22, 1995, when President Meles Zenawi succeeded him as Prime Minister. While in power, he realized that his communist-socialist ideology was mistaken. He staffed important government posts with friends and was known for dressing well and his numerous extramarital affairs. Tamrat became deputy prime minister until October 1996. Zenawi announced that his multi-disciplinary failures and abuse of power made it impossible to keep him in the government.

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