Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed
ADDIS ABABA, June 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says the government wants a “peaceful, democratic” election and urges for unity during the inauguration of the rebuilt Meskel Square ahead of the country’s approaching election.
The reputation of the Nobel Peace Prize winner has been tarnished as he has waged a military campaign in the Tigray region, where the United Nations warned that tens of thousands of children risk starvation.
“We are facing an election that will develop or destroy our country, build it or demolish it. We, Ethiopians, firmly know that the division that has been borne out of conflict is not a better option. I want to call again for an agreement and for the protection and prosperity of our country,” stressed Abiy Ahmed.
The United States on Friday voiced alarm over conditions ahead of Ethiopia’s elections, saying that ethnic violence and detentions of opposition figures will raise doubts about the vote’s credibility.
Ethiopia’s elections are going ahead after two delays. Election authorities last year pushed back polls due to the coronavirus pandemic, and then delayed the vote from June 5 due to logistical concerns.
The June 21 polls for the 547 seats in Ethiopia’s House of Representatives will be the sixth since the overthrow of Mengistu Haile Mariam’s communist government in 1991.
Meanwhile, voting will not take place in Tigray, where a seven-month-long conflict between federal forces and the region’s former rulers has led to the decimation of its institutions and infrastructure.
Tigray had carried out its own rogue polls last year, in defiance of the federal government’s orders to postpone them. The TPLF, which was declared the winner of those polls, has since been designated a “terrorist” group by the federal government. — NNN-AGENCIES