Ethiopia will also delay elections between security, travel difficulties | Ethiopian Stories

The Electoral Commission (IEC) said delays in opening polling stations and voter registration had put it back on polling day.

Ethiopia has postponed its election after opposition parties said they would not take part and because of a dispute in the Tigray region it means no vote is taking place there, which furthers Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s efforts to establish power.

Birtukan Mideksa, chairman of The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE), “pointed out that the delay in opening polling stations and voter registration has made it a polling day,” state media reported Fana said on Saturday.

Mideksa told Reuters news agency that the election would not take place on June 5 as planned.

“We will allow everyone [know] as soon as it is only a matter of weeks or days to complete the tasks that have been delayed… It will not take more than three weeks, ”he added.

Mideksa cited a number of factors, including the completion of voter registration, electoral training, printing and distribution of ballot papers.

“Almost, they failed to deliver all of this at the scheduled time,” he said.

A few weeks before the election, there were only a few signs, and several opposition parties were preparing to boycott the vote, calling it a “joke”.

The vote was scheduled for August last year but was changed for the first time due to the coronavirus epidemic.

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which then ruled the northern region at the time, rejected this and held regional elections in September.

This is what sparked a dispute between the TPLF and the central government in Addis Ababa, which has been going on since early November.

The war in Tigray has killed thousands of people and has led the United States to say that “ethnic cleansing” against the Tigrayans takes place in the western part of an area with a population of about six.

The Prime Minister, who introduced political change when he took office in 2018 and won the Nobel Peace Prize the following year, has repeatedly promised that the elections will be free and fair.

Abiy will continue his role if the Prosperity Party wins more seats in parliament.