Ethiopia’s House of Peoples’ Representatives unanimously approved a new law on elections, political party registration and electoral conduct at an emergency session on Aug. 24, 2019, borkena reported.
Members of Ethiopia’s House of Peoples’ Representatives vote by a show of hands, in a photo dated May 6, 2021. (VOA Amharic / Wikimedia Commons, public domain) [file photo]
The parliament, whose members all belonged to the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), voted after a debate on a bill prepared by its Law, Justice and Democratic Affairs Standing Committee. The committee amended 149 articles, including the bill’s name, according to Fana Broadcasting Corporation, which borkena cited.
The law merged three earlier statutes on elections, party registration and the electoral code of conduct into one text. It covers party and candidate activities, the use of mass media during campaigns, coalitions and mergers between parties, and the handling of election disputes.
It raised the number of founding members needed to register a national party to 10,000 from 1,500, and for a regional party to 4,000 from 750, Reuters reported. Civil servants who run for office must temporarily leave their jobs, without pay or benefits, until the election is over.
Lawmakers rejected a proposal to declare a female candidate the winner when she ties with a male rival, saying it would violate the principle of gender equality, borkena reported.
Fifty-seven opposition parties said their proposed amendments had been ignored. “We are strongly opposed to the provision that civil servants must vacate their jobs if they are going to run for office,” Desalegn Chane, head of the National Movement of Amhara, told Reuters. “This is unfair. Government employees should be allowed to run.”
Merera Gudina, chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress, said his party’s request to lower the signature requirement had been ignored. “It was the invisible hands of the EPRDF,” he told Reuters. In September 2019, a coalition of opposition parties threatened to boycott the vote unless the law was changed, Reuters reported.
The law was published as Proclamation No. 1162/2019, the Ethiopian Electoral, Political Parties Registration and Election’s Code of Conduct Proclamation, according to the National Election Board of Ethiopia. It replaced Proclamations No. 532/2007, 573/2008 and 662/2009.
The general election it was meant to govern, first set for Aug. 29, 2020, was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and held on June 21 and Sept. 30, 2021. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party won at least 410 seats in partial results. Parliament amended the law in 2021 with Proclamation No. 1235/2021, according to the ILO’s NATLEX database.
Sources: borkena (Aug. 25, 2019), Reuters: “Ethiopia’s opposition parties criticise election law changes” (Aug. 24, 2019), Reuters: “Ethiopian opposition parties threaten election boycott” (Sept. 2019), National Election Board of Ethiopia: Election Laws, ILO NATLEX: Proclamation No. 1162/2019, Wikipedia: 2021 Ethiopian general election