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The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia has announced that it will postpone the upcoming general election due to the effects of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19).
The Board, in consultation with senior health experts, international partners and political parties, has cancelled its current electoral schedule and suspended activities that were planned for the coming months.
The Board has taken into consideration government measures to contain the pandemic, especially the need to minimise human contact, and the overall impact those measures will have on voter registration, recruitment and training of electoral staff, as well as the related pre-election preparatory work. It has decided that the tasks will be impossible to carry out within the set time frame.
In the interest of keeping the community safe and healthy and ensuring the credibility of the electoral process, the Electoral Board will come up with a new election operation plan and schedule.
The Board has presented its decision and the survey upon which it was based to the House of Peoples’ Representatives so as to aid it in its continuing decisions. It has announced that it will commence with electoral preparations that remain unaffected.
The general elections were set to be held on August 29, 2020.
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