window of opportunity

Ethiopia set to announce election results in the midst of the Tigray conflict

By Samuel Getachew

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Posted on June 25, 2021 17:52

Ethiopians count casted votes in the Ethiopian parliamentary and regional elections in Addis Ababa © Staff members from the National Election Board of Ethiopia and observers count casted ballots at a polling station after the Ethiopian parliamentary and regional elections, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 22 June 2021. REUTERS/Maheder Haileselassie Tadese
Staff members from the National Election Board of Ethiopia and observers count casted ballots at a polling station after the Ethiopian parliamentary and regional elections, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 22 June 2021. REUTERS/Maheder Haileselassie Tadese

With an expected result favouring Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in a parliamentary vote boycotted by leading opposition parties, including the Oromo Federalist Congress, there are complaints about how open and fair the elections were in Africa’s second-most populous country. But the vote still represents somewhat of an opening compared to the political repression under the former Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front alliance government.

Saba Alemu, 38, waited in line for hours to cast her vote on 21 June. Her favourite candidate – one-time journalist and activist Eskender Nega – was placed on the ballot weeks before the vote as a mayoral candidate in Addis Ababa.

Last year, he had been imprisoned alongside the firebrand Jawar Mohammed Jawar and others; he was not fully able to participate in the election, pushing his candidacy to a fringe status.

“I support Eskender and I have followed his work as a journalist and now a political candidate. I thought he would be a great mayor and politician. He had sacrificed a lot for his belief and it is a pity, he was not able to campaign and garner support,” she tells The Africa Report, reflecting on the collective decade-long imprisonment of the 51-year-old activist during the era of Tigray People’s Liberation Front-led (TPLF) government and now, Abiy.

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