The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia on Friday announced the parliamentary election in the country will be held on June 5 next year, reported Reuters. The election, which was previously scheduled for August 2020, was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The electoral board confirmed that there will be no election in Tigray next year. It said the date for a vote in Tigray would be fixed once an interim government, which was established during the conflict, opened election offices. The voter registration would take place starting March 1 and will continue until March 30.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who came to power in 2018 and won last year’s Nobel Peace prize, had promised free, fair, and democratic elections for the ballot that should have taken place on August 29. The tenure of both the parliament and Abiy was due to expire in October but was extended because of the global coronavirus pandemic.
Back in September, the Tigray region conducted its own elections against the federal government, which declared the polls as illegal. Last month, fighting erupted in Ethiopia after the central government accused the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) of conducting an illegal election and attacking a military base to steal weapons.
Thousands of people are expected to have been killed and 950,000 have fled their homes since fighting between regional and federal forces began in the northern Tigray region on Nov. 4.
Ethiopia, which is Africa’s second-most populous nation, has a federal system with 10 regional governments.
In the upcoming election, Prime Minister Abiy’s Prosperity Party faces challenges from other ethnically-based parties seeking more power for their regions. Last year, he merged three of the main regional parties in Ethiopia to form the Prosperity Party. The fourth, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), refused to join the coalition.
