The African Union (AU) election observer mission on Wednesday lauded Ethiopia for holding fair, and peaceful polls reported Africa News.
Speaking to the media, Olusegun Obasanjo, chief of the AU election observer team, said his team has observed that Ethiopia’s legislative and regional elections were conducted in an orderly, peaceful, and credible manner.
“Despite some operational, logistical, Covid-19, security, and political challenges – most of which we have mentioned – overall, the election and election day processes were conducted in an orderly, peaceful, and credible manner,” said Obasanjo when presenting the AU election mission’s preliminary statement.
The AU observer mission also called for parties not content with the result of the election to resort to opt for legal and institutional mechanisms to address the issue in the interest of making the next steps of the electoral phase peaceful.
The AU Ethiopia election observer mission comprises eight long-term observers and 57 short-term observers.
Vote counting is currently underway following the elections that went ahead without polling in the northern Tigray region.
The twice-delayed general elections were held in seven of Ethiopia’s 10 regional states on Monday, with voters choosing candidates vying for 440 of the 547 parliamentary seats in the East African country.
Some 38 million people were registered to vote but many chose not to vote, with elections postponed or canceled in a fifth of national constituencies because of war, insecurity, and logistical problems.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed nonetheless declared Monday as “a historic day for Ethiopia”.
“All sections of society have gone out to cast their voice in our nation’s first free and fair election,” Abiy wrote in a Twitter post, alongside images of crowds waiting to vote. “Pictures are a thousand words and they show the earnestness, commitment to peace and the democratic process, by our people.”
Results are not expected for several days as ballots are counted in the vast nation of 110 million.
