Abiy announces peaceful vote in Ethiopia as parties end campaign Abiy Ahmed News

Political parties involved in Ethiopia’s twice-delayed polls have completed election campaigns next week, and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has announced that the country will successfully hold a peaceful vote.

The June 21 election will be a time of great ethnic unrest and economic challenges, as well as a month-long conflict in the northern Tigray region, and the United Nations has warned that at least 350,000 people are hungry. Opposition parties in other key regions have said they will boycott the polls, the sixth since Mengistu Haile Mariam ousted the communist government in 1991.

“Everyone says we’re going to fight, but we’re going to show them in a different way,” Abiy said Wednesday at the first and final rally in the crowded stadium in the southern town of Jimma.

“The forces that saved Ethiopia from falling will turn the Horn of Africa into a center of African power,” he added, wearing sunglasses and a tuxedo made of traditional local fabrics.

“I call on all (engaged) Ethiopians in the struggle to ensure a peaceful, democratic and prosperous Ethiopia: as long as Ethiopians remain united in one spirit and heart, there is no force on earth that can stop us,” he said. speaking in a mixture of his native language – Afan Oromo, the regional language – and the Amharic national language.

Abiy’s Prosperity Party is fielding the most candidates for national parliamentary races and is a staunch favorite to win, with a wide reach that other political parties do not have.

For 44-year-olds, Monday’s election is a chance to win a popular mandate after rising to power in 2018 after protests against the government.

After his appointment, Abiy promised that he would review the government and carry out democratic reforms so that the ultimate goal would be free and fair elections by 2020 (the first historic one).

But in March last year, citing the dangers posed by the coronavirus pandemic, the country’s electoral body announced it would delay the survey by a year. The decision angered many of the country’s political opposition, accusing the ruling party of using the pandemic power as an excuse to illegally extend power, a complaint denied by the government.

A second week’s delay was announced last month due to logistical issues, including training of election staff and the printing and distribution of ballot papers.

Despite being nominated for a nationwide poll, voting will not take place on Monday in nearly a fifth of the country’s 547 constituencies, with 38 seats in Tigray and another 64 countries with about 110 million people. Most of the delayed votes are scheduled for Sept. 6, but no date has yet been set for Tigray, as more than five million people are in need of emergency food aid.

Abiy ordered a ground and air military operation in Tigray in early November 2020, after the regional government party at the time accused the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) of directing attacks on federal army camps, with TPLF officials dismissing the allegation.

The forces, backed by troops from Eritrea and fighters from the Amhara region of Ethiopia, claimed victory in late November when the army entered the capital of the Mekelle region. The fighting, however, continues unabated and widespread reports of massacres, rapes and famines are taking place.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed passes election campaign announcement in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia [Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]

The United States, historically an ally of Ethiopia but increasingly critical, as the Tigray conflict has progressed, has raised alarms over voting conditions.

The arrests of key opposition leaders and areas of ethnic conflict in the country “are obstacles to achieving a free and fair electoral process and whether Ethiopians will be considered credible,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said last week.

“The exclusion of large sectors of the electorate from this competition is particularly worrying due to security issues and internal displacement,” he added.

The European Union said in May that it would not send observers to the elections, and that reaching agreements with the government did not mention basic communications, such as communications and observer independence.

The Oromo Federalist Congress and the Oromo Liberation Front – two of Oromia’s most important parties, the nation’s most populous region – came out of the race, accusing candidates of being arrested and offices vandalized.

But supporters of opposition parties who took part in the polls on Wednesday took to the streets of the capital Addis Ababa to enter the town squares and block traffic with loud parades and singing and dancing.

The Balderas party, which itself is behind the bar, marched in the center of the city in a rough parade led by men on horseback, led by a group of loudspeakers to distribute their ears.

“We are uniting in favor of the people, even if we do not believe that this vote will be completely free or fair,” said Zebiba Ibrahim, a 25-year-old candidate for the opposition party.

“We’re doing the best we can so our voice can be heard.”

In Meskel Square, in the heart of the capital, another opposition party, Ezema, gathered in Ethiopian flags and shouted slogans to gather supporters for the latest demonstration.

“You couldn’t hold a rally in the previous election, you couldn’t do anything,” says Temesgen Getahun, a 37-year-old hotel employee watching the festivities in the area.

“If you took to the streets if you were going to be jailed … considering those elections, that’s fine.”