(3 minutes read)
· Ethiopia is in an election mode now. It is preparing to hold crucial seventh general elections across the country on June 21, which was twice postponed mostly because of the pandemic
· No define date has been set for elections in the mountainous region where close to six million live
· There are other areas also where the elections are not taking place
· Abiy’s Prosperity Party is fielding the most candidates for national parliamentary races and is the firm favorite to win
Ethiopia is in an election mode now. It is preparing to hold crucial seventh general elections across the country on June 21, which was twice postponed mostly because of the pandemic. There are concerns about the credibility of the vote amidst the famine and continuing violence war torn Tigray.
There are criticisms against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who is incidentally a Nobel Prize winner for Peace for pushing ahead with the elections despite the ongoing fights in Tigray, where voting will not be held on Monday. Some other parts of the country are also restive and the elections will not take place there. On top of it, opposition parties in some regions are boycotting the election. This is the sixth election taking place after the end of the military rule some 30 years ago. Earlier polls, analysts say, fell short of international standards and transparency.
UN agencies put the number of affected people in the northern region at 350,000. Of that, include thousands of malnourished children. Despite Abiy’s assurance that the fight in the Tigray, which broke out in November would be short, it is still dragging after seven months or so, characterized by terrible atrocities and alleged ethnic cleansing.
Also, no define date has been set for elections in the mountainous region where close to six million live. There are other areas also where the elections are not taking place. The US, which was earlier a supporter of Ethiopia and the administration of Abiy, is highly critical of how it is handling the Tigray conflict. The European Union said in May that it would not send observers to the polls. It cited the failure to reach an agreement with the government on basic issues like communications and the observers’ independence as the reason for not sending observers.
Abiy’s Prosperity Party is fielding the most candidates for national parliamentary races and is the firm favorite to win.
