Ethiopia’s decision to postpone its August 2020 elections indefinitely has raised political temperatures in the country, as both the government and opposition parties accuse each other of attempting a power grab.
Beginning late March, Addis Ababa sought to reorganise its electoral calendar, which would have seen the country hold its first democratic elections in 15 years. The electoral body, which had warned previously about the challenges of holding an election amidst a myriad of issues including insecurity and weather, proposed postponing the poll date. Some see this as Ethiopia’s opportunity to reboot its troubled transition.
The proposal was approved by parliament in April, but doing so has triggered a looming constitutional crisis. Increasingly harder for the ruling party, while it makes sense not to hold polls amidst a global pandemic, the political space has grown rapidly over the last two years, making it harder for the ruling party to govern by decree.
The main issue is that according to Ethiopian laws, the terms of the current governments (both national and federal) automatically expire on 30 September. The ruling party has laid out four options, each with its own complications. These include: Dissolving parliament; Declaring a state of emergency; Changing the laws; Seeking “constitutional interpretations” from the upper house of the country’s parliament.
While Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government has chosen the last option, opposition leaders such as Jawar Mohammed are not so convinced by it. Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s Constitution does not have provisions pertaining to the postponement of elections. Although the upper house includes representatives from all regions of Ethiopia, the ruling party dominates the lower house.
In June last year, opposition leaders warned that postponing the 2020 elections would “anger the public” and have “grave consequences.” At the time, the main issue was insecurity, although some opposition leaders repeatedly pointed out that it would be hard to hold free and fair elections in a largely rural country in August, which is one of the region’s rainy seasons. Now, nearly all opposition parties have rejected the indefinite postponement.
The ruling party’s former founding partner, the Tigray’s People Liberation Front (TPLF), has threatened to hold its own elections in the Tigray region. Other Opposition leaders have called for dialogue on this issue before September. In his op-ed for the Addis Standard, Jawar Mohammed stressed that the right solution “is more political rather than constitutional.
