[ad_1]
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed answers questions from members of parliament at the prime minister’s office in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, on November 30, 2020. / AP
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed answers questions from members of parliament at the prime minister’s office in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, on November 30, 2020. / AP
Ethiopia will hold parliamentary elections on June 5, the electoral board said on Friday, as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed seeks to quell political and ethnic violence in various regions.
Voter registration for the June ballot would take place from March 1 to March 30, the electoral board said.
The Abiy Prosperity Party, a pan-Ethiopian movement he founded a year ago, faces challenges from ethnically-based parties seeking greater participation in power in their regions.
Africa’s second most populous nation has a federal system with 10 regional governments, many of which have border disputes with neighboring areas or face low-level unrest.
On Friday, a Red Cross volunteer said the death toll had risen to 222 from an attack in Ethiopia’s western Benishangul-Gumuz region.
“Yesterday we buried 207 people who are the victims and 15 more of the attackers,” Melese Mesfin, a Red Cross volunteer, told Reuters.
The attack occurred in the village of Bekoji in Bulen County in the Metekel area, and the state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission initially estimated that more than 100 people had been killed.
More than 40,000 people fled their homes due to the fighting, Bulen County spokesman Kassahun Addisu said. He said the county had buried 207 people.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called the attack a “massacre” and deployed federal troops there the next day. Federal forces killed 42 gunmen accused of attacking the village.
Wednesday’s attack by unidentified gunmen was the latest deadly assault in an area ravaged by ethnic violence.
The prime minister is also dealing with a longstanding insurgency in Ethiopia’s most populous region, Oromiya. Many Oromo politicians are now in jail on charges of terrorism offenses following the murder of popular Oromo musician Hachalu Hundessa, whose death sparked protests that killed at least 178 people in Oromiya and the capital Addis Ababa.
Read more:
In the Spotlight: Hachalu Hundessa – the voice of the ‘voiceless’ silenced in Ethiopia
Insecurity continues in Ethiopia’s Tigray region
In the northern region of Tigray, thousands of people are believed to have died and 950,000 have fled their homes since clashes between regional and federal forces broke out on 4 November.
Tigray held its own elections in September in defiance of the federal government that declared the ballot box illegal.
The National Electoral Board said next year’s election calendar does not include an election in Tigray. He said the date for the Tigray vote would be set once an interim government, which was established during the conflict, opens electoral offices.
The national vote was postponed from August this year due to the coronavirus crisis. The head of the winning party becomes prime minister.
For nearly three decades, until Abiy was appointed, Ethiopia was ruled by a coalition of four ethnic movements dominated by Tigray’s party. That administration ruled in an increasingly autocratic fashion until Abiy came to power in 2018 after years of protests.
(With contributions from agencies)
