Legislative and regional Ethiopia: mixed democratic elections

“The will of the Ethiopian people will be guaranteed,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed hammered on Monday (June 21st), voting in regional and legislative elections in his town of Beshesha. Initially scheduled for August, then postponed twice, because of the health crisis and then because of logistical problems, the ballot which must renew the deputies at the local and national level, was finally held this Monday in Ethiopia. The elected nationals will in turn designate the Prime Minister responsible for leading the country, the President of the Republic having only an honorary role.

This is not a simple legislative ballot for the country. For Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, 44, these elections are a test. The current head of government has never been elected. He became Prime Minister in April 2018, after the authoritarian coalition of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) appointed him to replace Hailemariam Desalegn, pushed to resign by a powerful anti-government protest movement. These elections are therefore supposed to give it the popular blessing it lacks. Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2019, Abiy Ahmed, who freed thousands of prisoners and encouraged the return of opponents in exile, also promised that these legislative and regional elections would be the most democratic Ethiopia has ever known.

“This election is different”

On the ground, the queues formed in front of the polling stations in Addis Ababa as well as in Bahir Dar, capital of the Amhara region (north-west), testify to a beautiful popular mobilization. Proof of the success of the poll, the electoral commission announced that the polling stations, which were initially scheduled to close at 6 p.m. (3 p.m. GMT), would remain open until 9 p.m. across the country.

Several voters and politicians interviewed by AFP even welcomed a more democratic election, according to them, than the previous ones, where political life was under the thumb of the ruling coalition since 1991. “I vote because I want to see my vote. country to transform. This election is different, Milyon Gebregziabher, 45, a travel agent in Addis Ababa, told AFP. You can choose between different political parties. ‘a.”

“In terms of the independence of the institutions, of the process, of access to the media, we can say that it is much better than the previous elections,” said Dessalegn Chanie, one of the leaders of the National Movement for Amhara (Nama ), a popular opposition party in the second most populous region of the country.

“A democratic farce” ?

But this election is far from being as democratic as the government and some opponents suggest. “In terms of popular legitimacy, those who support the Prime Minister as well as the opposition parties still in the election consider this to be a legitimate process,” said William Davison, a British specialist on Ethiopia in a report. interview in France 24. Therefore, they will regard the government formed subsequently as legitimate – if there are no significant complaints from the opposition in the voting process and the count. But all parties and their base supporters who do not participate in the elections will see the ballot as a democratic farce. ”

This is particularly the case in Oromia, Ethiopia’s most populous region which also has the largest number of constituencies – 178 in total – in the federal parliament. “There is an absence of electoral competition against the ruling party because the two main opposition parties boycotted the election, claiming the conditions were unfair and they suffered a crackdown, including the arrest of leaders and activists, “abounds the English researcher. The opposition party of the Oromo Federalist Congress, (OFC) whose leaders Jawar Mohammed and Bekele Gerba are detained in prison, has in fact decided to shun the ballot.

In addition to the boycotts, there are also the areas where there is no ballot. We will not vote in about one in five ridings. No ballot in Tigray because of the war raging there. No election either in part of the Benisangul-Gumuz region and western Oromia because of community violence. The Somali and Harari regions also cannot go to the polls due to logistical problems: the ballots could not be printed correctly.

The international community worries

A catch-up vote is well scheduled for September 6, but not everyone will be affected. No date has been set for the 38 constituencies of Tigray. In this region, where the government has been carrying out a military operation since November, atrocities have been documented and at least 350,000 people are now threatened by famine according to the UN, which the Ethiopian government disputes.

Under these conditions, some observers questioned the credibility of the poll, especially the United States, worried about the exclusion of so many voters and the detention of opposition leaders. For its part, the European Union has quite simply given up sending a mission to observe the legislative elections for lack of sufficient guarantees to ensure the independence of the election.

The poll is also closely watched by neighbors and rivals of Ethiopia, such as Sudan and Egypt, opposed to the “Great Dam of Renaissance”, a titanic hydroelectric project on the Blue Nile which, according to them, threatens their supply. in water.

Abiy Ahmed, a warlord who remains popular

“All this reflects how troubled the situation is in the country, but it will have no direct impact on the remainder of the elections,” said William Davison. Of course, after seven months of a short-lived conflict, the war has considerably tarnished the Prime Minister’s pacifying image in the eyes of the international community. But Abiy Ahmed remains nevertheless the big favorite of the poll.

First, because his movement, the Prosperity Party, has the largest number of candidates for the Federal Parliament. But also because he remains the strong man of the country. “By taking up arms against the TPLF (Front for the Liberation of the People of Tigray), a party unpopular in the rest of Ethiopia, it also received the support of a part of the population,” notes William Davison. the case in the Amhara region, where there was particularly strong opposition to the TPLF. ”

The reasons that justified the war, “and in particular the fact that the TPLF ‘attacked our soldiers in their sleep’, were quite successful in mobilizing Ethiopian public opinion in favor of the war, concludes the British researcher. , being seen as a strong leader in times of war is something that has bolstered Abiy’s reputation with part of the Ethiopian electorate. “