No clear stance comes from the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) on nine private political contenders, out of 11, after it eliminated two in its latest decision of matching constituencies with number of candidates.
This comes after the candidate registration, which ended last week, produced higher number than there should be per constituency, in some, as stated in the electoral laws of the nation.
The two eliminated candidates were running to obtain a seat in the federal legislature representing Addis Abeba. The first candidate was Selome Tadesse, former head of the then Ethiopian Radio & Television Agency, now Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC), and government spokesperson during the Ethio-Eritrean war. Selome was running for a seat in constituency 17 of Bole District, which includes areas such as Gerji and Bole. The constituency initially had 13 political candidates before her elimination.
The second candidate, called Ebaa Folsa (Maj.) was running for constituency 23 of Kolfe Keranio District, around Vatican Embassy, near Sefere Genet Street. In constituency 23, there were 14 political candidates. Ebaa was first eliminated, reducing the total number of candidates in his constituency to 13 candidates, whereas six candidates take the first priority. The remaining seven were sorted through raffle.
“This decision by the board was not in my expectation; priority must be given to private candidates because we run on our own without support from the Board, be it in terms of finance or having media air time, to advocate our options to the electorate,” Selome told Fortune.
According to article 12 of Directive 1/09 of candidate registration, private candidates shall produce no less than 1,000 endorsement signatures.
If Selome had been able to run and had managed to win the seat, she would have been the first woman private member of parliament. Currently, Selome is working as Chief Executive Officer of a consultancy firm, Emerge Plc, which provides consultancy service and leadership training.
The criteria used by the board were not fair and it actually discriminated against emerging political parties that had popular support and also discouraged private political candidates, said Hallelujah Lulie, researcher at Peace & Security Council Report, Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis Division (CPRA).
The criteria should accommodate new emerging political parties and at least one reserved running spot must be allotted to private candidates at each constituency, suggests Hallelujah.
The decision by the board came after a number of political candidates, 326 in number, registered to secure the 23 seats available in parliament representing Addis.
This number was beyond what was allowed by the Amended Electoral law of Ethiopia Number 532/07. In accordance to article 49 of aforementioned proclamation, the number of political candidates running for the federal parliament and registered within a single constituency shall not exceed 12.
Following this, the board will give priority to candidates representing political parties and will automatically eliminate private political candidates. Again, out of the political parties, only six parties will be allowed to have their candidates registered and the remaining six will be selected through a lottery system.
“The Board has taken its own measures in order to match the number of registered candidates with the number permitted by law,” said Getahun Gebremedhin, head of NEBE’s Addis Abeba Branch.
Six parties that had received votes during the previous election have been given first priority and were provided the chance not facing a lot. These include Forum for Democratic Dialogue, a.k.a Medrek, Unity for Democracy & Justice (UDJ), Coalition for Unity & Democracy (CUD) a.k.a Kinjit, the Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP), the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and the Ethiopian Democratic Unity Movement (EDUM).
The aforementioned parties have been able to have 23 candidates registered, whereas the remaining registered less than 23. In contrast, political parties such as Semayawi (Blue) have lost six of their candidates. Four of them were eliminated via lot, while two of them were eliminated on the basis of election irregularities.
Two of the candidates who claimed to be members of Semayawi were proven to have shifted their candidacy from other political parties, according to Getahun. One was president of the Omo People Democratic Union Party (OPDUP), Girma Bekele, and the other was a candidate who was formally the member of UDJ.
The one from UDJ had failed to bring clearance from UDJ and in the case of Girma, since he originally took the symbol of candidacy from the Board representing OPDUP, he cannot compete as a representative of Semayawi, Getahun told Fortune. Consequently, on the basis of these conditions, two of these candidates were eliminated from candidacy, while the remaining four were selected based on lot. One of the four eliminated candidates of Semayawi was Yilekal Getnet (Eng.), president of Semayawi.
After the process of identifying candidates for Addis Abeba was made, the Board finally registered 273 candidates; 12 in 21 constituencies, while the remaining have 10 and 11 candidates.
As campaign time has already began, the Board has allocated 500 hours of television air time, 100 hours and 10 minutes of radio and 100 columns of space in government-owned newspapers for 46 political parties to conduct their campaign. The allocation was made on the basis of 40:40:10:10 ratio. The first two numbers represent the number of seats in the parliament and regional council and the number of candidates registered for the upcoming election, while the remaining two are based on the number women candidates and on basis of equality.
Since the first national election in 1995, the Ethiopian parliament has witnessed 11 independent MPs, including Zeneb Alemayehu, Admassie Zeleke (Maj.), Bedru Adem, Negasso Gidada (PhD), former president of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE), and the serving MP, Ashebir Woldgiorgis (DD), former president of the Ethiopian Football Federation.
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