Mereja Forum

[Aba]

Elections in a time of war

Ethiopians will head to the polls on Monday in national and regional elections, but not in Tigray where voting has been cancelled amid a conflict that has left hundreds of thousands facing famine. Security concerns and administrative issues have forced delays in other areas too: notably in western Oromia – where a rebel insurgency is bubbling away – and in the violence-wracked Benishangul-Gumuz region. With their leaders behind bars, some of Ethiopia’s main opposition parties have announced a boycott. And although a handful of constituencies are expected to be competitive, analysts predict an easy win for the ruling Prosperity Party headed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Any claim to a popular mandate will of course ring hollow in Tigray, where the government and its allies have committed seemingly every crime imaginable: massacres, mass rape, ethnic cleansing, and now starvation as a weapon of war.

https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news ... heat-Sheet