The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) has annulled 26 political parties, which failed to fulfill the necessary requirements to renew their licenses.
NEBE Chairperson Birtukan Midekissa said on Tuesday that the decision was taken in accordance with NEBE’s Proclamation Number 1162/2011 and political parties’ regulation Number 3, which obliges political parties to meet the necessary requirements.
According to the chairperson, the 26 political parties had failed to meet the conditions and present satisfactory documents to the electoral board.
Birtukan stated that last March the board wrote an official letter to 106 existing political parties to renew their registration by fulfilling the requirements set by the new electoral law of the country.
Out of the 106 political parties, 76 have submitted the necessary documents needed by the board to renew the license.
Meanwhile, out of the 106 political parties, the licenses of 13 political parties are cancelled as their request for extension of document submission is not accepted by the board.
The license of other 14 political parties is also cancelled because they haven’t submitted the required documents for re-registration and few among them have also merged with others.
Currently NEBE said it is verifying and checking if the 76 political parties have submitted all the required documents.
For the past few months over 100 political parties most of them ethnic based were in the process of re-registering their political parties and establishing new ones to participate in the upcoming general election, which was supposed to take place at the end of August.
Meanwhile following the outbreak of COVID-19 global pandemic, the country has suspended the election.
MG/as/APA