Will democracy be rooted in embattled Ethiopia post the elections and months of civil war? It would be premature to hazard a guess though the Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party has won a landslide victory, securing 410 of the 436 contested seats in the embattled country’s federal parliament.
Despite the repression on a section of the populace, the Prosperity Party has won the most seats in the country’s election, a victory that assures Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed a second five-year term in office. In a statement posted on Twitter, Abiy hailed the June 21 vote as a historically inclusive election. And so it was.
“Our party is also happy that it has been chosen by the will of the people to administer the country,” he added. The election marked the first time Abiy faced voters since he was appointed as Prime Minister in 2018 following several years of anti-government protests. But there were red herrings across the trail in a swathe of Africa, notably an opposition boycott, war in the northern region of Tigray, ethnic violence and logistical challenges in some areas.
These were the factors that overshadowed the poll. Indeed, there was no voting in three of Ethiopia’s 10 regions. Despite the pronounced disaffection in such volatile regions as Tigray, the Prosperity Party won 410 seats, according to results issued by the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) which said there would be a rerun in 10 constituencies.
The leader of the main opposition Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice party, Birhanu Nega, lost while the opposition parties ~ Ezema and the National Movement of Amhara (NAMA) ~ each won less than 10 seats. More accurately, the landslide triumph of the Prosperity Party came as “no surprise”.
Abiy’s party was from the start in an advantageous position The outcome has reaffirmed the decimation of the Opposition. Much will be expected of Mr Abiy as his party now boasts a brute majority and the Opposition has been reduced to irrelevance. But the landslide will mean that it will become that much tougher to hold the government to account.
Opposition demonstrations outside the House could be more frequent than within. In Abiy’s native Oromia region, Ethiopia’s largest, two of the most prominent opposition parties ~ the Oromo Federalist Congress and the Oromo Liberation Front ~ pulled out entirely, saying their candidates had been arrested and offices vandalised. Thus did the governing party contest alone in several dozen constituencies.
No date has been set for voting in Tigray, where the military has been battling forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the region’s former governing party, since November. The fighting has displaced two million people, and the United Nations has warned of famine conditions in parts of the region. While any democratic process is cause for cheer, Ethiopia’s election has left several questions unaddressed.