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One of the promises made by the administration of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is to hold free and fair elections that will not repeat the mistakes of the past. He hoped this would lay the foundation for the country’s transition to a more democratic and prosperous future. Therefore, he appointed one of the prominent opposition figures to head the country’s electoral authority. Birtukan Mideksa, a former politician and lawyer by profession who also served as a judge in federal court, made a similar promise to hold an election that would take the process one step further and restore public confidence in voting.
Elevated by these promises, hopes rose and political parties proliferated in the country. 107 parties signed a code of conduct in March 2019 for the elections ahead. Since then, the number of regional and national political parties had grown to more than 160. But, of these parties, only 53 were able to complete the registration process by the Ethiopian National Electoral Board (NEBE) because they did not meet the requirements. how to obtain authentic signatures of 10,000 founding members for national parties and 4,000 for regional parties. Among them, 47 have registered 8,209 candidates for the next general elections, both for the regional councils and for the People’s House of Representatives. In addition, 125 private candidates are running as members of different chambers.
Scheduled for June 5, 2021, the road to elections has been quite bumpy for both political parties and the entity in charge of holding the elections. And, nicely, some of these challenges will haunt the process even after D-Day. Security challenges stand out among all these challenges, which also seem to have been in the spotlight of the government.
In a recent continuation of the series of dialogues organized by the Prime Minister’s Office called Addis WogAbiy Ahmed (PhD) stressed that he is concerned that some paid individuals may inflict attacks on both the electorate and election officials. As these forces are not uniformed, which makes it difficult for the rest of the public to identify them, they could attack civilians, causing a feeling of insecurity in the electorate. Although he did not say a name, he said these forces do not want Ethiopia to prevail and its territorial integrity to remain intact. This is the first time that an official at the top of the government authority admits the level of insecurity in the country and shows that things could get out of control at some point. Abiy said he is more concerned about these anonymous forces than the urban protests.
Those concerns are also shared by many political parties and analysts who have insisted from the beginning that the country is not yet ready to hold elections. Those with this view have been calling on the government to address the immediate problems that are compromising the existence of the nation itself. For example, Lidetu Ayalew, a prominent politician who recently saw his party’s license revoked by the Ethiopian National Electoral Board (NEBE), has been constantly calling for national dialogue before the elections.
His fear was that the elections would aggravate the wound because the country was already fragile. “First things first,” he was saying.
The same concerns have been voiced by prominent academic and politician Merera Gudina (Prof.). Merera has repeatedly said that the country must first follow the path of national consensus through an inclusive national dialogue. However, efforts to launch these kinds of national dialogues that would eventually lead to a national consensus have been marred by controversy. For example, at one such event held in the meeting room of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), where Merera presented a paper on the controversial historical narratives in the country, he was denounced for raising such issues instead to seek ways to reconcile their narratives with others who have different points of view. Government officials were part of this complaint.
Hence the political change that Abiy Ahmed and company. sponsored has brought with it the challenges its predecessor faced prior to the leadership change. But the intensity has increased. Ethnic conflicts and attacks on civilians, armed forces roaming various parts of the country, as well as inconsistent party discipline within the ruling party exacerbated the situation.
The killings of civilians seem to have no end in sight. Never a week goes by without lethal attacks in every corner of the country. From West Wolega to the Amaro Special Zone in the South, from the Metekel zone of the Benshangul Gumuz region to the Oromo Nationality Zone of the Amhara regional state, civilian deaths have become common. Aside from denouncing the slaughter of hundreds of civilians and deploying federal security forces, the federal government appears to have lost control of the matter. Following the massacre of dozens of civilians in the city of Ataye, in the Amhara region, the country witnessed another mass killing of civilians in the West Wolega area of the Oromia regional state.
The government’s security analysis of possible attacks, conflicts and incidents is now well communicated to NEBE pressuring the Board to engage in the additional task of doing security analysis. In his interview with The reporter Last week, Birtukan Midekssa said that the Board is not receiving the necessary support from the government, especially when it comes to security issues. He said this is frustrating for the Board.
“We are not getting the adequate information that we require from federal entities, especially when it comes to security issues,” he said.
Therefore, security continues to be one of the Board’s main challenges. Another hot potato is the precarious situation in the Metekel area of the Benshangul Gumuz region which has also put psychological pressure on the population, most of whom now live in shelters for internally displaced persons. Amente Geshe, leader of the Boru Democratic Party (a regional opposition party that participates in the elections, maintains that people are traumatized by what happened and are not ready to return to their villages, much less register for elections and vote. They need to be given time to heal by postponing the scheduled elections in those specific locations.
Another security problem is the dispute over the boundaries between the regional states of Afar and Somali. Although the disputed border line between the two regional states had been there for a long time and at times resulted in skirmishes between security forces on both sides, the announcement by the Electoral Board of the annulment of polling stations in local governments in The dispute resurrected border-related complications between the disputed local governments. two regional states. Of the nearly 50,000 polling stations nationwide, 30 are on the edge.
Despite the Board’s announcement that the electoral map used in the previous elections six years ago has not changed, the Afar region protested the location of some kebeles and voting centers in the Somali region. The Afar region claims that these places were illegally transferred to the Somali region in the first place. After analyzing the region’s complaints, the Board decided not to establish the planned polling stations in these areas, prompting the Somali region to protest the decision and threaten to withdraw from the elections.
But the board refuted the argument of the Somali region saying that, as a government, the region has a legal mandate to cooperate for electoral activities and cannot threaten to withdraw from the elections, as it is the parties that can.
Although the Somali region did not issue any official statement following the Board’s decision, this remains a neglected point for the Board to address.
With these challenges ahead, candidate registration was completed and voter registration began last week. With the limited support the Board has been receiving from government entities at both the federal and regional levels, it is required to find its way through these challenges to conduct the elections.
