The People's Front for Democracy and Justice (Tigrinya: ህዝባዊ ግንባር ንደሞክራስን ፍትሕን, PFDJ) is the founding, ruling, and sole legal political party of the State of Eritrea.
The PFDJ has been described as totalitarian,[6][7][8][9] and under its rule Eritrea reached the status of the least electorally democratic country in Africa according to V-Dem Democracy indices in 2023.
The ELF grew in membership when the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie abolished Eritrea's autonomous status, annexing it as a province in 1962.
The congress gave the PFDJ a transitional mandate to draw the general population into the political process and to prepare the country for constitutional democracy.
[citation needed] As a consequence, both domestic and foreign media expressed high hopes that Eritrea would develop a self-governed and democratic government.
The assembly later chose the PFDJ's secretary-general and the former EPLF leader, Isaias Afwerki as Eritrea's president and formed a cabinet around him.
[19] Although the PFDJ lacks specific political programs covering concrete policies, its overall foundations are embedded in declared priorities including the establishment of a constitutional system which is built on nationalism and democracy.
[citation needed] In this regard, the PFDJ provides a specific approach in-line with historical development and conditions of Eritrean society.
In the context of Eritrean society, democracy should not be dependent on the number of political parties and regular elections, but on the actual participation of people in the decision-making process at community and national levels.
Insistence on increased number of political parties and regularity of electoral schedule are therefore perceived by the PFDJ as narrow concepts which limit the meaning of democracy to its form.
[21] Third, the PFDJ introduces socialist elements, defining social justice as the condition which allows: 1) the narrowing of the gap in economic opportunities and wealth between the rich and the poor to ensure equitable distribution of national wealth among all citizens; as well as 2) the narrowing of the development gap between the rural and urban areas, and between the center and periphery.
Fourth, one of the key elements in nation-building, the PFDJ program sets out priorities, which include the development and evolution of Eritrean culture.
[citation needed] In its Charter, the PFDJ states that internal democratic life and the cultivation of popular participation are critical not only for the unity of the party, but also to clarify and enhance its policies, and to identify and correct any shortcomings.
[citation needed] On the contrary, it encourages and assists the establishment of public associations with objectives similar to its programs, along social, trade and other non- sectarian lines.
Reviews revealed that basic principles of human rights and procedures of due process and models of judicial independence were not emphasized.
The first attempt of the PFDJ to influence the country's norms and values system immediately after the end of the independence war failed because the fighters were in the minority.
[24] On 12 November 2021, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control added the PFDJ to its Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list for being "a political party that has engaged in, or whose members have engaged in, activities that have contributed to the crisis in northern Ethiopia or have obstructed a ceasefire or peace process to resolve such crisis".