Ethiopia will proceed with parliamentary elections on 1 June next year, the Electoral Commission has confirmed on 9 December, even as the country grapples with persistent armed conflict in several regions.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told Parliament on 28 October that the Government possesses both the capacity and the resolve to conduct what he described as the most effectively organised elections in the nation’s history. The announcement, however, comes at a time when fighting in the country’s two most populous regions has displaced millions in a nation of roughly 130 million people.
The vote will be held as Ethiopia continues to navigate the aftermath of the devastating Tigray conflict, which raged from November 2020 to November 2022 and cost an estimated 600,000 lives, according to the African Union.
Armed violence also persists in Oromia, where federal Forces confront the Oromo Liberation Army, and in Amhara, where the Fano militia has resisted disarmament efforts since April 2023, despite a nearly year-long state of emergency. Beyond insecurity, financing the elections presents a further hurdle for a Government still reliant on IMF and World Bank support.