Ethiopia again delays national election amid deadly tensions 

NAIROBI: Ethiopia has again delayed its national election after some opposition parties said they wouldn't take part and as conflict in the country's Tigray region means no vote is being held there.

The head of the national elections board, Birtukan Mideksa, in a meeting with political parties' representatives on Saturday said the June 5 vote in Africa's second most populous country would be postponed until a yet-unknown date, citing the need to finish printing ballots, training staffers and compiling voters' information.

Ethiopia last year delayed the election, the first major electoral test for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, citing the COVID-19 pandemic.

That heightened tensions with the Tigray region's leaders, who declared that Abiy's mandate had ended and defiantly held a regional vote of their own that Ethiopia called illegal.

Since then, war in Tigray has killed thousands and led the United States to allege that “ethnic cleansing” against Tigrayans was being carried out in the western part of Tigray, a region of some 6 million people.

The prime minister, who introduced sweeping political reforms after taking office in 2018 and won the Nobel Peace Prize the following year, has repeatedly vowed that this election would be free and fair.

But the European Union recently said it would not observe the vote, saying Ethiopia failed to guarantee the independence of its mission and refused its requests to allow the importation of communications equipment.

Meanwhile, sometimes deadly ethnic tensions in parts of Ethiopia have led some to question how the election would be carried out, and the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress earlier this year pulled out of the vote.

Several of its leaders remain behind bars after a wave of violence last year sparked by the killing of a popular Omoro musician.