On 9 September 2020, the

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

n region of

Tigray The Tigray Region (or simply Tigray; officially the Tigray National Regional State) is the northernmost Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob people, Irob and Kunama people. I ...

held an election for its state council. The election was considered illegal by the federal government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who postponed the 2020 general election earlier in the year because of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. According to the election organisers, the

Tigray People's Liberation Front The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF; ), also known as the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, is a left-wing Ethnic nationalism, ethnic nationalist, paramilitary group, and the former ruling party of Ethiopia. It was classified as a ter ...

won 98.2% of the vote and 100% of the 152 seats that were contested.

Electoral environment

France 24 France 24 ( in French) is a French state-owned publicly funded international news television network based in Paris. Its channels, broadcast in French, English, Arabic and Spanish, are aimed at the overseas market. Based in the Paris suburb ...

reported aging war veterans and university students formed long lines to partake in the elections. 600 candidates from five parties competed for 152 seats in the 190 seat legislature. The distribution of the remaining 38 seats will be determined at a later date by participating parties. The campaign featured televised debates among leaders of different parties. Opposition parties stated that while they had good access to regional media, they also faced some threats and intimidations.

Boycott

Arena Tigray boycotted the election on the grounds of "political provocations by the TPLF", the COVID-19 pandemic and what it saw as the illegitimacy of the election. The Tigray Democratic Party also stated that it would boycott the election.

Results

On 11 September 2020 the Amharic language service of the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

reported that, of the 190 members of the state council, 152 were controlled by the TPLF and 38 were to be distributed to rival parties. However, in local reports in September 2020, the Tigray Region state council allocated 16 seats to the four opposition parties.

References

Elections in Ethiopia Prelude to the Tigray war

2020 in Ethiopia September 2020 in Ethiopia COVID-19 pandemic in Ethiopia {{Ethiopia-election-stub