Two of Ethiopia's largest opposition parties, the All Ethiopian Unity Party (AEUP) and the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) party, announced their intention to merge in late December. This merging has long been a possibility, as both were members of the now defunct opposition alliance, Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), which fared well in the 2005 general election. However, the strained relationship between leaders of the two parties-AEUP leader, Hailu Shawel, and former UDJ leader, Birtukan Medeksa-had previously put the prospect of such a union in doubt. In the past, both leaders had said that the chance of the two parties officially merging was slim.

Despite a successful showing in the May 2005 elections, the CUD alliance fell apart soon after in the face of a violent government crackdown. The coalition won 89 parliamentary seats in the election, as well as over 200 seats in regional assemblies and city governments. However, following allegations of fraud and public demonstrations in which an estimated 200 people were killed by government security forces, the majority of the party's leadership was imprisoned. After spending 18 months in prison following convictions for attempting to overthrow the government, the CUD leaders, including Ms Birtukan and Mr Hailu, were finally pardoned and released in 2007.

However, by this time the membership of the CUD had fractured. While the AEUP was a member party of the CUD, the UDJ was only created by Ms Birtukan upon her release from prison in 2007. It borrowed a large part of its membership and political manifesto from the CUD. However, Ms Birtukan was rearrested in late 2008 and only released in October 2010; it appears unlikely that she will return to politics in the near future. Meanwhile, Mr Hailu was re-elected as leader of the AEUP in late December 2010, despite having offered his resignation following the party's poor performance in the May 2010 elections. The absence of Ms Birtukan from the political scene may have aided the planned merger, but if she were to come back as an active leader of the UDJ, the union of the two parties could be put in doubt.