Ethiopia’s election board announced at the weekend that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had won the country’s delayed elections with an overwhelming majority.
The election had been delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The election board said Abiy’s Prosperity Party won 410 out of 436 seats. However, according to the BBC, a fifth of the country did not vote due to insecurity and logistical problems. There was no polling in the war-torn Tigray region, where many thousands are living in famine conditions.
The report said another round of elections was scheduled for 6 September in the affected areas, though a date had yet to be confirmed for polling in Tigray.
Opposition parties complained that a government crackdown against their officials had disrupted their election preparations.
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.
[Image: The Kremlin, Moscow, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84821858]