Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party has won the most seats in Ethiopia’s parliamentary elections, the electoral Council announced, a victory that assures him of another term in office.
Abiy’s party won 410 of the 436 parliamentary seats, Woubshet Ayele, deputy chairman of the electoral council, said at a news conference in the capital Addis Ababa.
Abiy hailed the June 21 poll as the country’s first free and fair election after decades of repressive rule.
However, an opposition boycott, war, ethnic violence and logistical difficulties overshadowed the poll in some areas. Voting did not take place in three of Ethiopia’s ten regions. Opposition leader Berhanu Nega said his party, the Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice (Ezema), filed 207 complaints after local officials and militiamen blocked observers in the Amhara region and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples region.