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Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has won the country’s delayed elections with an overwhelming majority, the election board said on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The board said Mr. Abiy’s Prosperity Party won 410 out of 436 seats, giving him another five-year term in office.<\/p>\n
Polls were not held in the war-torn Tigray region, where many thousands are living in famine conditions.<\/p>\n
In all, a fifth of the country failed to take part in voting owing to insecurity and logistical problems.<\/p>\n
Another round of elections has been provisionally scheduled for 6 September in the affected areas, but there is no date for a vote in Tigray.<\/p>\n
The election had already been delayed due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Mr. Abiy, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, described the vote as a “historically inclusive election” in a statement on Twitter.<\/p>\n
A new government is expected to be formed in October. However, there are concerns about the election’s integrity.<\/p>\n
Opposition parties had complained that a government crackdown against their officials had disrupted their plans to prepare.<\/p>\n
Berhanu Nega said his party, Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice, had filed more than 200 complaints after observers in a number of regions were blocked by local officials and militiamen.<\/p>\n
Securing a parliamentary majority gives Prime Minister Abiy a governing mandate, but instead of celebration, the focus will quickly turn to how he will deal with mounting challenges.<\/p>\n
The ruinous war in Tigray, in which he prematurely declared victory, has killed thousands of Ethiopians, displaced millions, and left hundreds of thousands facing famine.<\/p>\n
His government has also been accused of cutting power and blocking phone lines across the region, leaving hospitals to run on generators.<\/p>\n
His unilateral declaration of a ceasefire has not been heeded by the Tigray rebel forces, who continue to fight Eritrean soldiers and Amhara militias.<\/p>\n
This election win will do little to improve Mr. Abiy’s reputation in the eyes of the international community. His next moves will be closely watched at home and abroad.<\/p>\n
The state-affiliated Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said there were “no serious or widespread human rights violations” in stations it observed.<\/p>\n
However, in a preliminary report, the EHRC said that some constituencies experienced “improper arrests”, voter intimidation, and “harassment” of observers and journalists.<\/p>\n
It also said it had observed several killings in the days leading up to the vote in the regional state of Oromia.<\/p>\n
In May, the EU accused Ethiopia of failing to guarantee the independence of its election.<\/p>\n
The election was Mr. Abiy’s first electoral test since coming to power in 2018.<\/p>\n
He has clamped down on corruption, released political prisoners, appointed more women to the cabinet, and made peace with neighboring Eritrea, following a 1998-2000 border war that left tens of thousands of people dead.<\/p>\n
He won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, but just a year later, he waged a military operation in his own country – deploying troops to Tigray to oust the TPLF as the region’s ruling party after it seized military bases in what Mr. Abiy saw as a bid to overthrow him.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, for the first time in two weeks, the UN World Food Programme began moving aid into Tigray. Different sides in the conflict have been accusing each other of blocking much-needed shipments.<\/p>\n
The UN said on Friday that humanitarian operations were being constrained by the absence of essential services including fuel, telecommunications and electricity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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