From 1941 until 1952, the British Administration acted as an intermediate governing appointment as the political interest and socioeconomic well-being of the Eritrean people was being assessed to form a more autonomous predication. The emergence of political parties was initiated with Haile Selassie’s return to the Ethiopian throne in May of 1941, where to immediate effect he set out on the acquisition of Eritrea and Somaliland into the Ethiopian state. This political perspective was synonymous with the organization known as 'Mahbar Feqri Hagar Eretra’ (Society for the Love of the Land of Eritrea) which would then become the Unionist Party in 1944. Most Eritreans during this time did not favor the alignment of the Ethiopian crown and Eritrea. The emanation of the Unionist Party was challenged two years later with the materialization of the Moslem League in 1946 which incurred enormous following from the mostly-Muslim western part of the country, and a small portion from the Christian Highlands. A segmentation from the Moslem League was erected in 1947 and came to be known as the National Moslem Party of Massawa. Following was another predominantly Muslim organization known as the New Eritrean Pro-Italy Party maintaining a large Italian community supporting the ideology that if Rome desired to reacquire Eritrea, Italy would assist in obtaining its independence. A predominantly Christian party was also incurred in February 1948 known as the Eritrean Liberal Progressive Party, opposing any union with Ethiopia. On 25 July 1949, the Independence Bloc was devised and consisted of all major parties except the Unionist. Political parties continued to branch off from their original predecessors to represent more refined interests and many secluded to form singular parties representing the dominate political aspiration. Affiliation with political parties was no more strictly determinate on religious alliance as it was with geographical locale. However, parties often shared common interests, such as regional - highland versus lowland - and faith - Muslim versus Christian. Most of the parties sustained an anti-union sentiment which was met with intimidation and interference by the Ethiopian crown.
