Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy’s party has won a landslide victory in the election by Reuters

By Dawit Endeshaw

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party won the first most seats in Ethiopia’s parliamentary elections, the election commission said on Saturday, securing a victory that secures another term.

Abiyk said the June 21 vote was the country’s first free and fair election, following decades of repressive crackdowns. However, opposition boycotts, wars in the northern Tigray region, ethnic violence and logistical challenges in some areas covered the election. Voting did not take place in three of Ethiopia’s 10 regions.

The Abiy party won 436 seats in 436 parliaments, Woubshet Ayele, vice-chairman of the polling station, announced in the capital Addis Ababa. President Birtukan Mideksa said the commission has held credible elections.

Opposition leader Berhanu Nega said the Ethiopian People’s Social Justice Party (Ezema) had filed 207 complaints after local officials and militants had blocked observers from the Amhara region and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples region.

The election was the first test of the pro-Abiy elections, and in 2018 when the governing coalition was appointed prime minister it promised political and economic reforms.

A few months after taking office, Abiy lifted a ban on opposition parties, released tens of thousands of political prisoners and took steps to market one of Africa’s last unmarkets.

Now he is facing international pressure from allegations of war and rights groups in Tigray that his government is pushing back some new freedoms and denying them.

Abiy’s newly formed Prosperity Party had fragmented opposition from dozens of ethnic-based parties. Opposition parties such as Ezema and the Amhara National Movement (NAMA) each won less than 10 seats.

Voting in the Harar and Somali regions was postponed until September due to security concerns and problems with ballot papers.

No voting date has been set in Tigray, where the military has been fighting the forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the region’s first ruling party, since November. The fighting has displaced 2 million people, and the United Nations has warned of famine in some parts of the region.

In late June, the TPLF took control of most of Tigray and Mekelle’s regional capitals, eight months after the conflict erupted.

The government announced a unilateral ceasefire following the progress of the TPLF days. The TPLF has submitted a list of seven demands that are a precondition for a ceasefire, including the withdrawal of the military and its allies from parts of Tigray now managed by the neighboring Amhara region, which also claims land.