Ethiopia Holds General Election With Voting Cancelled in Tigray Region

Ethiopia's general election takes place on Monday, with the northern region of Tigray completely excluded from voting. The electoral board confirmed in May there would be no voting in any of Tigray's 38 constituencies. Tigray is home to an estimated six million people.

The vote is the seventh national election since the downfall of the military regime in 1991, an upheaval that led to Eritrea's secession two years later. Voters will elect representatives to the 547-member parliament. The party that secures at least 274 seats earns the right to form the next government, which will lead the country for the next five years.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, 49, came to power in 2018 after widespread protests against the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. He dissolved the EPRDF and replaced it with the Prosperity Party. Abiy's party won by a landslide in the 2021 election.

He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize mainly for ending a 20-year military stalemate with Eritrea. The civil war in Tigray ended in 2022 after a two-year conflict estimated by the African Union's mediator to have killed some 600,000 people. Earlier this month the Tigray People's Liberation Front elected Debretsion Gebremichael to take over the interim administration.

The TPLF is now effectively banned and its legal status revoked. The peace deal between the government and the TPLF was signed in November 2022 in Pretoria. More than 9,400 people were killed in 2024 as a result of violence in Amhara and Oromia, according to Acled.

Voting has already been cancelled in 30 out of 137 constituencies in the Amhara region. The government says 97% of areas in Amhara and Oromia are ready to hold elections. 5 million people have registered to vote.

9 million and is Africa's second most-populous nation after Nigeria. The country's GDP per capita is projected to reach $1,133 in 2026, compared to $641 in 2016, according to World Bank estimates.

Addis Ababa is undergoing rapid urban transformation under the Corridor Development and Riverside projects, which have displaced tens of thousands of residents. Ethiopia came 148 out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' 2025 press freedom index.

Human Rights Watch condemned Ethiopia's government for arbitrarily arresting journalists and media professionals in its September 2025 publication.

The credentials for three reporters working for the Reuters news agency were revoked in February. The Committee to Protect Journalists said there was "a troubling pattern of repressive regulatory action against international and independent press in Ethiopia".

Prof Merera Gurdina, a member of the Oromo Federalist Congress, said: "We are participating symbolically because the law says you cannot boycott elections consecutively.

Deputy Prime Minister Temesgen Tiruneh said: "We have ministers who are members of opposition parties. This trend will continue. We do not want to win 100% of the votes. " Eritrea took a 1,350km coastline upon independence more than 30 years ago, leaving Ethiopia landlocked.