The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) (, "ḥəzbawi wäyanä ḥarənnät təgray", "Popular Struggle for the Freedom of Tigray"; widely known by names Woyane, Wayana (Amharic: ወያነ) or Wayane (ወያኔ) in older texts and Amharic publications) is a heavily armed ethnic nationalist paramilitary insurgency, terrorist group, political party, and former ruling authoritarian regime of Ethiopia, established on 18 February 1975 in Dedebit, northwestern Tigray, according to official records. Within 16 years, it had grown from about a dozen men into the most powerful armed liberation movement in Ethiopia. It led a coalition of movements named the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) from 1989 to 2018. With the help of its former ally, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), EPRDF overthrew the dictatorship of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) and established a new government on 28 May 1991 that ruled Ethiopia until its refusal to merge into the Prosperity Party in 2019.