• EHRC says referendum carried out peacefully
ADDIS ABABA – National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) disclosed that it will reveal results of the Sidama People’s referendum today.
According to the board result of the peoples vote in each polling station has been made public in the respective stations on the evening of the same day. Each station has also submitted the result to the 15 coordination office Thursday while Zonal coordination offices have been compiling the results yesterday.
Hence, the board said it is set to announce the final results today and urged all concerned parties to patiently wait for the announcement.
It is to be recalled that Sidama People cast ballots on Wednesday to determine on their quest for their statehood.
Meanwhile, Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said that the Sidama referendum was peaceful and no major critical incident was reported except minor irregularities on polling day.
EHRC’s Preliminary Statement on the Human Rights Situation of the Sidama Referendum released yesterday pointed out that “despite a compressed time period for the elections and tense political environment in the country, the Sidama referendum held on 20 November 2019 across the Sidama zone was peaceful.”
EHRC on its statement noted that a 20-member of human rights monitoring team of EHRC led by Dr. Daniel Bekele, Chief of EHRC Commissioner have visited over hundred polling stations in five city administrations and 15 rural woredas across the zone on election day. EHRC added that it also observed other polling stations in the pre-election period.
According to its preliminary statement on the observed polling stations, EHRC stated that pre-election period and polling day concluded peacefully per the schedule and EHRC human rights observers’ team reported only minor irregularities on Election Day.
According to the statement of the Commission the registration of voters, security issues, the campaign environment and election administration processes were generally peaceful despite few limitations and challenges.
Only limited number of election disturbance cases which was handled by law enforcement officials timely, some imbalance on election campaign though there was no official restriction or any ban and minor irregularities in some polling stations in election administration due to load were among the limitations the statement pointed out.
EHRC noted that its observers will remain in Sidama zone to continue observing the human rights environment in the post-election period.
NOV 23/2019
BY STAFF REPORTER
