Addis Ababa: Ethiopians started voting on Sunday in national and regional elections, the country's first polls since the 2012 death of its longtime leader, and the ruling party is expected to maintain its iron-clad grip on power.
More than 38 million voters were registered to vote in this East African nation of about 90 million people. Some opposition groups threatened to boycott the vote, saying their members are being harassed and detained charges the government denies.
Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, a former university professor-turned-politician, has been leading the country since the death of strongman Meles Zenawi, who built the ruling coalition into a powerful political organisation.
Ethiopia is a federal parliamentary republic and the party or coalition that wins the most seats in the 547-seat parliament will form the next government. All parliament seats are being voted today, as well as local offices. Desalegn is expected to remain in power.
In 2010, the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, or EPRDF, won 99.6 per cent of all parliamentary seats. Only one opposition lawmaker won a seat in an election that watchdog groups said was marred by intimidation and the harassment of opposition activists.
Human Rights Watch called that victory "the culmination of the government's five-year strategy of systematically closing down space for political dissent and independent criticism."
Those allegations have persisted in this year's election. The government has denied the charges, instead accusing the opposition and neighbouring arch-foe Eritrea of plotting to disrupt the vote.
"We remain vigilant and confident that the general election will be peaceful, free and fair, notwithstanding destabilisation attempts that may be tried by Eritrea or its local emissaries, which we will respond to with stern measures," Desalegn said Thursday.
More 45,000 polling stations will be open with nearly 250,000 election observers assigned to monitor them. The National Election Board of Ethiopia said provisional results are expected in a week but final results won't be released before June 22.
