Ethiopian local elections, 2008

Ethiopia held nationwide elections for local offices from Kebele and Woreda for meetings on April 13 and 20, 2008.

It also by-elections for seats in the Addis Ababa City Council and in the national and regional parliaments were held, ( Kinijit ) who were free due to the refusal of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy participate simultaneously in the election. By law, the local elections were to be held as part of the general elections in 2005, but by the resulting unrest they have been moved.

Background

This choice was important for the winner, which would control the local government structures: The kebeles and woredas, which are the most important institutions for the control of local communities and the main service providers are. For the members of local councils re-election was a matter of Behaltung their daily bread, and for new candidates for membership in one of the councils is seen as a way to gain access to scarce state resources.

While the international community was a major player in the 2005 elections, they were in this election on the sidelines. In a letter of 26 December 2007, a group of nations providing foreign aid to Ethiopia, pleaded three party leaders - Beyene Petros (United Ethiopian Democratic Forces ), Temesken Zewdie (Coalition for Unity and Democracy ) and Bulcha Demeksa ( Federalist Democratic Oromo movement ) - desperate for her intervention: "We need to have your attention to this critical issue in election observation, because we fear that the way in which the NEBE currently the process until the elections goes through predictable route to a non- - consensual outcome of the vote. "

Possible pressure from donor countries on the Ethiopian government was neutralized by the desire to meet the Millennium Development Goals - a fact which the government knows well. If a group of donor countries tried to play with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi Hard -Ball and suspended cash payments in the wake of the 2005 election, he told them quietly to pack up and go home if they were not interested in supporting the development the country to promote. " Collapsed all donor countries and again full development aid to the country. " " After a few weeks," says eels and Tronvoll,

Results

The ruling party, the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front ( EPRDF ), won back control of the Addis Ababa City Council and all but one of the 39 parliamentary seats in the elections. In the municipal elections, the EPRDF won more than 3.5 million of the 3.6 million open seats. The National Electoral Commission of Ethiopia reported that the turnout was 93 % of the electorate.

Although this was the first election in Ethiopia since the turbulent 2005 election, there were several opposition parties away from the election. Bulcha Demeksa, said his party was only able to 2% of the 6,000 candidates as they wanted it to set up because the rest had been threatened by supporters of the government. Likewise, another opposition alliance, the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces, said that from its 20,000 candidates who tried to register, it was only 10,000, and only 6,000 of those had their names actually placed on the lists in polling stations.