(4 minutes read)
· Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has got another five year to rule the country after a landslide victory in the recently held elections
· The party he leads –ruling Prosperity Party- won 410 seats out of 436 in the twice postponed general election
· The opposition parties and independent candidates won a small number of seats, though some of the parties refused to take in the lections pointing out the poll was lacking in an uneven field for the opposition parties
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has got another five year to rule the country after a landslide victory in the recently held elections. The party he leads –ruling Prosperity Party- won 410 seats out of 436 in the twice postponed general election. The opposition parties and independent candidates won a small number of seats, though some of the parties refused to take in the lections pointing out the poll was lacking in an uneven field for the opposition parties. Results of the elections were announced by the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) on Saturday. The Board also said that there would be a rerun in 10 constituencies.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed hailed the outcome of the election as historic and recalled his several years of anti-government protests against exploitation and anti-democracy activities. Abey is the winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize and termed the victory at the ballot box as a mandate for political and economic reforms. He said that the vote was meant to affirm the promised democratic revival in Ethiopia and assured a clean break with repression of the past.
Significantly, voting occurred only in one-fifth of the country’s 547 constituencies due to ethnic violence or logistical issues. The second batch of polling is set for September 6 for the constituencies which did not go to the polls for one reason or the other. No poll date has been fixed for the trouble torn Tigray where eight months of grueling fight is going on without any solution in sight.
There are some wish lists forwarded by the citizens for the new government to address which include focus on stabilizing the country’s growth, stopping tribal conflicts, managing inflation, engaging the opposition and initiating an all-inclusive national dialogue. Can Abiy Ahmed achieve that in his second innings is the trillion dollar question posed by the experts.
