 has officially rejected Ethiopia's 7th general election. It said it will not resolve the crisis the country is facing. Read more.){kind=link}
Borkena
Toronto – The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) has officially rejected the 7th general election. It said it will not resolve the crisis the country is facing.
The statement it released on Wednesday reads as follows:
“Statement by the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) Regarding the 7th National Election
The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) firmly believes that the recent 7th National Election held on May 24, 2018, E.C. (June 1, 2026), will not bring lasting peace, stability, or democratic governance to the peoples of Ethiopia.
For over a year, the OFC and other genuine opposition parties clearly laid out the fundamental preconditions necessary to conduct a free, fair, and credible election. We publicly demanded an immediate halt to conflicts, the unconditional release of political prisoners, the reopening of closed political party offices, the repeal of repressive media and civil society laws, the establishment of an independent and jointly agreed-upon Ethiopian National Election Board, and for security forces to be strictly neutral and free from political partisanship. Tragically, by ignoring the voices of the opposition and the Ethiopian people’s cry for a genuine democratic transition, the government dismissed these crucial reforms and proceeded with a sham election. The OFC fielded only a few candidates, making a highly restricted and purely symbolic participation, merely out of respect for the law.
Consequently, as we feared, the election was riddled with fundamental flaws and was conducted in a manner that grossly denied citizens their right to vote. The devastating war currently raging in vast rural and urban outskirts of the Oromia and Amhara regions made it absolutely impossible to hold a credible election; thus, the process was confined only to major cities under heavy military guard. The Tigray region was completely excluded from the process.
Even in areas where the election supposedly took place, the process entirely lacked credibility. We observed blatant illegal practices, including clear partiality by election executives who appeared to be acting on behalf of the ruling party, massive intimidation against voters, continuous harassment of opposition party representatives, and their forceful removal from polling stations. Furthermore, a systematic ban was imposed on domestic observers. Except for a few observers from the African Union (AU) and IGAD, no other international observers were present. Even the AU and IGAD observers were unable to meaningfully observe the election outside the capital, Addis Ababa, due to the ongoing wars in the country, rendering the election virtually unobserved. Beyond this, the Election Board’s capacity limitations, coupled with election technology failures, ensured that the electoral process was based on unverified vote counting rather than the true will of the people.
The preliminary-election statement issued by the African Union and IGAD observer missions was deeply disappointing and undermined democratic principles. By deploying fewer than 100 observers to cover over 52,000 polling stations nationwide, and by visiting only 208 (0.4%) polling stations located in a few highly secured cities (Safe-zone bias), their report validating the process as “peaceful and transparent”—based purely on election day observation without considering pre-election problems and the overall state of the country—amounts to “election day tourism” rather than a genuine observer role.
On the other hand, the statement issued by the European Union (EU) delegation—who observed the election remotely without deploying observers on the ground, thereby ignoring the political repression—is highly regrettable and contradicts the Union’s democratic values. It is nothing more than “Diplomatic appeasement.”Ignoring the exclusion of millions of citizens from the election just to validate a sham process serves no purpose other than consolidating an authoritarian regime.
Through exclusion, coercion, and structural electoral theft, the tainted process has rendered the election completely meaningless. Under these dire circumstances, we are certain that the regime’s hope that this sham election will bring lasting peace, stable democracy, and economic growth is nothing more than an illusion. An election held by depriving millions of citizens of their right to vote, and a government formed on such a basis, cannot heal the deep political, social, and economic fractures the country currently faces. This is a truth widely reported not only by us but also by the international media. Even for the regime itself, this election will not garner the domestic legitimacy or the trust of the international community needed to salvage our economy, which has been shattered by civil war and political instability.
As we have repeatedly and publicly warned, imposing an electoral process on a country where devastating civil wars are raging in vast regions, where widespread political repression is rampant, and where the political space is closed, is not a chapter of democracy but rather a political drama orchestrated to legalize authoritarianism.
The OFC remains firm in its position that Ethiopia’s complex political crises cannot be resolved through an election that is neither free nor fair. The only viable path to save the country from further disintegration is to conduct a genuine and all-inclusive political dialogue. This dialogue must involve the armed groups currently at war with the government and bring together all relevant political forces in the country to establish a roadmap for a new political consensus based on negotiation.
Therefore, the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) makes the following urgent calls to all concerned parties:-
1/To the Government of Ethiopia: We want you to understand that the strategy of attempting to resolve all political differences through military force and political exclusion is not working. We urgently call for an immediate end to conflicts under the monitoring of international observers, the release of all political prisoners, and the taking of immediate steps to conduct an all-inclusive political dialogue to ensure a lasting national consensus.
2/To the Peoples of Ethiopia: To the Oromo people and all the nations, nationalities, and peoples of Ethiopia: because we firmly believe your fundamental problems will not be solved by an election that is not free and fair, we call upon you to stand firm on the principles of peaceful struggle and strengthen your unity to achieve true self-administration, justice, and a genuine multinational federalism.
3/To the International Community: Since the so-called election was not only non-inclusive, unfree, and unfair, but will also absolutely fail to create lasting peace, stability, and a democratic system, we call upon you to exert meaningful pressure on the government to conduct an honest and all-inclusive national dialogue.
The Oromo Federalist Congress will resolutely continue its struggle to realize a democratic and peaceful federal Ethiopia.
Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC)
June 10, 2026
Finfinne, Oromia, Ethiopia “
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It is so amazing to see how a skillful survivor this elderly leader of this has been since the bloodbath days of the demonic Mengistu. His then party Meison’s leaders such as Haile Fida and hundreds others had perished at the guillotine of Mengistu. He somehow came out alive just with a slap on the wrist. But those in the opposition and survived had testified for him that they were not badly mistreated at prisons he was in charge of. He is also known to be mortally at odds with those who founded the OLF. He then somehow found employment at the university but was fired by the EPRDF. He is still at it with his ethnic politics. It has worked for him like a charm as a survivor and still moving to Minnesota not on his mind.
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