APA-Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) The Chairperson of the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia, Bertukan Midedssa Monday announced her resignation as head of the board.
In a brief update she shared on her social media page, Midekissa said that she will be resigning as of August 7, 2023. Until then, she said that she will work on unfinished tasks on her turf and on making arrangements for administrative transition.
“When I started my work as Chairperson of the National Electoral Board, it was with the aim to make our institution credible and capable of administering elections independently. I have been striving to discharge my responsibility to organize referendums, national elections and administering political parties in good faith, in fairness and observing their legality over the past four years and six months,” she said in her statement.
She also indicated that she has notified the office of the Speaker of the Ethiopian Parliament regarding her decision. Birtukan related her resignation to health, the details of which are not provided.
However, there have been numerous reports from local sources recently that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a radical ethnic Tigray Political organization that the Ethiopian Parliament designated as a “terrorist organization” in May 2021 in view of an orchestrated attack on the Northern Command of the Ethiopian Defense Force and extensive war crime like measures in the Afar and Amhara region, move to get legal status in Election Board has turned out to be an acrimonious one between the board and Abiy Ahmed’s administration.
The TPLF lost legal status with the election board after it was designated as a terrorist organization.
There were also reports that Abiy Ahmed’s government has passed a political decision to bypass the legal deadlock to recognize the TPLF as a legally registered political party.
MG/abj/APA