General elections were held in Ethiopia on 15 May 2005, for seats in the House of Peoples' Representatives and four regional government councils. Under pressure from the international community, Prime MinisterMeles Zenawi promised that this election would be proof that more democracy would come in this multi-ethnic nation; international elections observers from the European Union (EU) and the U.S.-based Carter Center were present to observe the results. This election succeeded in attracting about 90% of the registered voters to the polls. A government ban on protests was imposed throughout the election period.
EU observers remarked on the "significantly enlarged freedoms for political campaigning in comparison to previous elections". Political parties campaigned actively, and opposition parties appeared to be increasingly active in the rural areas. The observer mission described the atmosphere "during the campaign was calm, culminating in two massive, peaceful rallies in Addis Ababa, one by the EPRDF and one by the opposition."[1]
Despite this, opposition parties alleged numerous cases of intimidation, and arrests of its supporters. While the EU observers could not investigate all of the alleged cases, it did confirm those it investigated. International human rights groups likewise cataloged a number of cases of human rights violations. However, the EU observers wrote in their final report, they "recorded no arrests of EPRDF supporters for campaign offences."[2]
Towards the close of the campaigning, the language became more vicious, with each side accusing the other of numerous violations of the campaigning rules. "Campaign rhetoric became insulting," the EU observer's report noted, then continued:
The most extreme example of this came from the Deputy Prime Minister, Addisu Legesse, who, in a public debate on 15 April, compared the opposition parties with the Interhamwe militia, which perpetrated the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The Prime Minister made the same comparison on 5 May in relation to the CUD. The EPRDF made the same associations during its free slots on radio and TV. The opposition coalition UEDF then used the comparison against the government in a TV spot showing footage of the movie "Hotel Rwanda". Such rhetoric is unacceptable in a democratic election.[3]
Early results
Early results showed the opposition with a big lead, sweeping all of the contested seats in the capital Addis both in the race for parliamentary as well as local government. By the afternoon of 16 May, the opposition claimed it was halfway towards winning a majority in the national parliament with only about a third of the constituencies reporting complete results. Later that day, trailing badly in the preliminary report covering just under 200 seats released by the National Election Board, the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) announced that it had won more than 317 seats out of 547, while conceding that opposition parties won all 23 seats in the capital city Addis Ababa. The two major opposition parties, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) and the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) claimed on that same day that they had won 185 of the approximately 200 seats for which the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) had released preliminary results. That was a significant improvement over the 12 seats the opposition had in the previous parliament.
By law, the NEBE was required to announce the official results on 8 June. However, the vote tallying process was jeopardized when the opposition claimed that the Addis Ababa vote was rigged and during the evening of 16 May, the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency, outlawed any public gathering, assumed direct command of the security forces, and replaced the capital city police with federal police and special forces drawn from elite army units. The NEBE, simultaneously, ordered the vote tallying process to stop, an order which was not rescinded for nearly a week, yet another action against which the opposition and the independent election monitors strongly objected.
The next official report from the NEBE, released on 27 May, showed that the EPRDF had won 209 seats, and affiliated parties 12 more. The report indicated the opposition parties had won 142 seats. "These results are provisional, and these results could change because we are looking into complaints by some of the parties," said NEBE spokesman Getahun Amogne.
Alleged voting irregularities
Observers from the European Union afterwards "assessed the closing and counting processes negatively in almost half of urban polling stations observed, a very high figure for international observers to record, and even worse in rural polling stations observed." Counting was slow, a remarkably high number of ballots were ruled invalid, and there was a lack of transparency in the results. "Result sheets were only displayed at 29 per cent of rural polling stations observed and 36 per cent of urban polling stations observed at the completion of counting. In 25 per cent of polling stations observed, political party representatives were not provided with a copy of the results."[4]
The situation only deteriorated with the following day, according to the observers,
starting with a blanket ban, issued immediately after the end of voting, on freedom of assembly in the capital. Media coverage also worsened. State media published statements by government/EPRDF personnel claiming victory in the elections, despite the fact that counting was still underway, but refused to publish opposition statements. Incidents involving students started on the night of 5 June and extended on 6 and 7 June with hundreds being arrested. During a demonstration in Addis Ababa on 8 June, security forces killed at least 36 citizens and in the aftermath arrested thousands of persons, mostly linked to the opposition, who were accused of spreading "political unrest".[4]
The CUD lodged complaints in 139 constituencies, the UEDF lodged 89 complaints, while the EPRDF has raised concerns over irregularities in more than 50 seats. Including the complaints lodged by small parties, complaints concerning the results in 299 parliamentary seats were lodged. According to an official of the NEBE, political parties had until June 3 to provide evidence of fraud, or their complaints would be dismissed. However investigations led to elections being re-run at a minimum of 16 voting stations, and affecting elections for at least six seats.[5] Writing in November of that year, scholar Christopher Clapham noted that "the official results of the elections are both complex in themselves, and deeply affected by fraud". On one hand, he pointed out that the EPRDF lost heavily in those cities of Ethiopia which were bellwethers of public opinion; on the other,
some of the constituencies declared for the EPRDF defy any plausible assessment of public opinion in the areas concerned: that it should have won about half of the seats both in Sidama and in western Welega, for instance, is entirely incredible. In Sidama, as a result of the May 2002 massacre, and in western Welega, as the heartland of OLF support, hostility to the regime runs very deep, and the declared results can only be the result either of heavy-handed government pressure before and during the vote, or else of fraud after it.[6]
Provisional results were scheduled to be released on May 23, but the need to investigate claims of voting irregularities and disruptions in two southern regions—Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region and Oromia— delayed the release of these results until June 8, the date originally scheduled for releasing the official results. When the ruling party was unofficially reported the winner of the election, demonstrations protesting alleged election fraud broke out, and continued into June. Hundreds of students were arrested in at least nine cities, including Gondar, Bure, Bahir Dar, Debre Marqos, Dessie and Awassa for demonstrating despite a month-old ban on protests imposed on the government. At the same time, security forces arrested dozens of locally prominent CUD members in Gondar, Dessie, Wondo Genet, Kombolcha and Jinka; unconfirmed reports of arrests following a similar pattern came from several other towns.[7] On June 8, police shot 42 people gathering at the Piazza and Merkato markets of Addis Ababa.[8] The government afterwards stated that an appropriate level of force was used and accused the CUD of fomenting dissent; the CUD denied these accusations, and claimed that the government was attempting to distract attention from election fraud. This led to the leaders of the CUD, including head Hailu Shawul, being put under house arrest while hundreds of security forces patrolled the streets of the capital.
Official results
Ethiopian 2005 general election results. Only parties with more than 10 seats shown. Red: EPRDF Blue: CUD Green: UEDF Light red: SPDP Light green: OFDM Grey: Others
On July 8, the NEBE released the first official results for 307 of the 547 national parliamentary seats. Of the 307 seats, the EPRDF had won 139, while CUD and UEDF won 93 and 42, respectively. Smaller parties and independent candidates won the remaining 33 seats. However, Berhanu Nega, vice-chairman of the CUD, had criticized the process on July 20, claiming that "The investigation process was a complete failure. Our representatives and witnesses have been harassed, threatened, barred and killed upon their return from the hearings."
Meanwhile, the NEBE investigated voting fraud and other irregularities, while also arranging new polls to resolve some disputes. On August 9, official results were released, acknowledging that the ruling EPRDF had won 296 of the total 524 seats — about 56% — enabling it to form a government, while its allied parties won 22 seats. The UEDF won 52 seats. Berhanu said his party, which had officially won 109 seats, was debating whether they would challenge the results in court. Repeat elections were scheduled for August 21 in 31 areas where either irregularities were reported or results were challenged.
Protests of the results, led by Coalition for Democracy and Unity, began on November 1, 2005, and have prompted more than 60,000 arrests. Live gunfire from government forces has been directed at protesters and bystanders, killing at least 42. A number of policemen were also killed suggesting that violence was not all on the side of the state.
Massacre claims and public inquiry
On October 18, 2006, the draft report of a 10-member public inquiry into election-related unrests was released to Associated Press (AP). It concludes that a total of 199 people (193 civilians and six policemen) were killed and 763 were injured, a significantly higher figure than the Ethiopian government's claim that 61 civilians and seven policemen were killed. The vice chairman of the inquiry, judge Wolde-Michael Meshesha, who fled Ethiopia a month prior after he had received anonymous death threats, told AP that "this was a massacre ... these demonstrators were unarmed yet the majority died from shots to the head." He added that the government attempted to pressure and intimidate members of the inquiry after learning about its controversial finding.[10] The Ethiopian government did not immediately comment on the leaked report, but the next day, it told BBC that its contents were "hearsay." The European Union's chief observer during the elections, Ana Maria Gomes, stated that the draft report "only confirms what we have said in our report on the elections," and "that indeed there were massive human rights violations."[11]
The politics of Ethiopia are the activities associated with the governance of Ethiopia. The government is structured as a federal parliamentary republic with both a President and Prime Minister. The government is multicameralism with a house of representative and a council. The term politics of Ethiopia mainly relates to the political activities in Ethiopia after the late 20th century when the democratization took place in the nation. The current political structure of Ethiopia was formed after the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) overthrew dictator President Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991. General election was held in June 1994 and Ethiopia has maintained a multiparty political environment till today.
Meles Zenawi Asres was an Ethiopian soldier and politician who served as President of Ethiopia from 1991 to 1995 and then Prime Minister of Ethiopia from 1995 until his death in 2012.
Under the current constitution, Ethiopia conducts local, regional, and federal elections. At the federal level, Ethiopia elects a legislature. The Federal Parliamentary Assembly has two chambers: the House of People's Representatives with not more than 550 members as per the constitution but actually nearly 547 members, elected for five-year terms in single-seat constituencies; and the Council of the Federation with 117 members, one each from the 22 minority nationalities, and one from each professional sector of its remaining nationalities, designated by the regional councils, which may elect them themselves or through popular elections.
The Coalition for Unity and Democracy, commonly referred to by its English abbreviation CUD, or occasionally CDU; its Amharic abbreviation, used in Ethiopia, is Qinijit; in English writing often referred to as Kinijit) was a coalition of four existing political parties of Ethiopia which combined to compete for seats in the Ethiopian General Elections held on May 15, 2005, and around the end of that year, became a full-fledged political party. Its leader was Dr. Hailu Shawul. It dissolved in 2007.
Hailu Shawul was an Ethiopian politician and civil engineer who was the leader of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) during the 2005 Ethiopian general election. He was also the leader of All Ethiopian Unity Party from 1996 to 2013. He died on 6 October 2016, while receiving treatment at a hospital in Bangkok, Thailand.
Beyene Petros is a professor of Biology at Addis Ababa University and a former member of the Ethiopian House of People's Representatives, representing an electoral district in Badawacho of Hadiya Zone. He is currently the chairman of one of the largest opposition political parties in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Federal Democratic Forum Medrek.
The 2005 Ethiopian general election violence, known generally as the Ethiopian police massacre, refers to the killing of civilians by government forces during June and November 2005 which led to the deaths of 193 protesters and injury of 763 others, mostly in the capital Addis Ababa, following the May 2005 elections in Ethiopia. More than 30,000 people were detained by security forces following the election, most released in 2006.
Lidetu Ayalew is an Ethiopian politician who is the founder and the leader of the Ethiopian Democratic Party. He was a deputy chairman and chief spokesperson of Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), during the 2005 Ethiopian general election.
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General elections were held in Ethiopia on 14 May and 31 August 2000 for seats in the House of Peoples' Representatives and several regional government councils. Although several opposition parties boycotted the election, 17 parties including the All-Amhara People's Organization, the Southern Ethiopia Peoples' Democratic Coalition (SEPDC), and the Oromo National Congress did participate.
General elections were held in Ethiopia on 23 May 2010.
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The Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) was an era established immediately after the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) seized power from the Marxist-Leninist People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) in 1991. During the transitional period, Meles Zenawi served as the president of the TGE while Tamrat Layne was prime minister. Among other major shifts in the country's political institutions, it was under the authority of the TGE that the realignment of provincial boundaries on the basis of ethnolinguistic identity occurred. The TGE was in power until 1995, when it transitioned into the reconstituted Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia that remains today.
Andualem Aragie is the Deputy Leader of Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice (ECSJ), an opposition party formed after the merger of 7 smaller opposition parties in May 2019. He was formerly the Vice President and Press Secretary for the Ethiopian-based Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJP) party. Andualem was sentenced to a life sentence on terrorism charges after being imprisoned on September 14, 2011 along with prominent journalist Eskinder Nega and opposition party members and reporters. His arrest has been ascribed by human rights organizations as a crackdown on dissent. Human Rights Watch also reported his detention as well as other members of the opposition and the potential for serious abuse during his imprisonment. He is now released from prison after the government pardoned him and other prisoners of conscience.
General elections were held in Ethiopia on 24 May 2015 to elect officials to the House of Peoples' Representatives. Regional Assembly elections were also held on this date.
The following lists events that happened during 2005 in Ethiopia.
The 2021 Ethiopian general election to elect members of the House of Peoples' Representatives was held on 21 June 2021 and 30 September 2021. Regional elections were also held on those dates.
Tamerat Negera is an Ethiopian journalist, analyst, and a commentator on Ethiopian politics. He was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to his mother Daditu Tucho Jote and his father Seargent Negera Feyisa Gurara. He is married to his wife Weyzero Selam Belay since 2019.
Democratic backsliding in Ethiopia is ongoing, most notably under the administration of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Since assumption of power in April 2018, Ahmed has played crucial role of reforms in the Ethiopian politics and reversal of policies implemented by the former ruling party, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Abiy immediately gained public approval and international recognition owing to liberalized policymaking including in media outlets, gender equality, internet freedom and privatization of economy. Furtherly, he was also warmly gained accolades for ending 20-years conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, from which he awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, being the first Ethiopian to earn the title. Thus, by 2019, Ethiopia was topped in 19 position out of 100 in Freedom in the World chart, signalized significant improvement from the past decades. In December 2019, he formed the Prosperity Party by dissolution of EPRDF and merged all its ethnic based regional parties while the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) refused to obey, resulting intense face-off with the federal government. He promised to hold free and fair upcoming election; although due to COVID-19 pandemic deterioration and other security and logistics issues, the election was postponed indefinitely in mid-2020. Opponents called this action as backdrop to "reconsolidate dictatorship" and "constitutional crisis". On 9 September 2020, the Tigray Regional election were held as the federal government deemed illegal election. According to the electoral commission, the TPLF won 98.2% of 152 seats were contested. The federal government and the Tigray authority relations aggravated by late 2020, culminating the Tigray War.
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