ADDIS ABABA, Nov 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ethiopia’s national electoral board has proposed that general elections be held either in late May or early June 2021.
The elections were to be held in August this year but were postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The board proposes that poll workers be trained from mid-December to mid-January.
Voters’ registration has been proposed to start from mid-January to the third week of February.
Registration of candidates has been proposed to begin from early to mid-February and election campaigns to begin from mid-February.
State-affiliated broadcaster FANA said the election will set the stage for a test of support for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s sweeping economic and political reforms.
Next year’s vote will be a litmus test for Abiy, who after decades of repression introduced sweeping economic and political reforms that helped win him the Nobel Prize last year.
But the new freedoms also fuelled long-suppressed demands for more regional autonomy, rights and resources.
Last month Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region went ahead and held regional elections in a show of defiance against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who called the vote illegal.
In the past three years, Ethiopia has faced several outbreaks of ethnic violence, what the government described as an attempt at a regional coup led by rogue security forces, and increasingly insistent demands from smaller ethnic groups for their own regions. — NNN-AGENCIES
