Ethiopia MPs back extending Abiy's term after election delay

Ethiopian lawmakers on Wednesday approved a plan to keep Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in power beyond his current mandate, state media reported, after the coronavirus pandemic forced authorities to postpone elections planned for August.

The move by the House of Federation, the upper house of parliament, drew a rebuke from opposition leaders who have accused Abiy of using the pandemic to artificially extend his time in office, and analysts warned of possible protests and boycotts.

"The House of Federation has approved a decision to extend the term of all assemblies until international health institutions have deemed the threat from coronavirus to be over," the Ethiopian News Agency reported.

The lawmakers did not specify when exactly elections should happen.

But their vote was an endorsement of recommendations submitted by the Council of Constitutional Inquiry, an advisory body that called for "elections to be held nine to 12 months after the coronavirus is deemed not to be a public health concern".

Abiy, the winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize who was appointed to his position in 2018, is seeking a popular mandate for wide-ranging political and economic reforms.

But Ethiopia's election board announced in March that it would be impossible to organise the polls on time because of the pandemic.

That meant elections would not happen before lawmakers' terms end in October -- a dilemma for which the constitution does not provide a clear answer.

The Council of Constitutional Inquiry held public hearings last month on possible next steps, though critics said these were insufficiently inclusive of opposition voices.

Some opposition leaders have called for a caretaker or transitional government to guide the country to elections, a suggestion Abiy dismissed as unworkable during a question-and-answer session on Monday with lawmakers.

'Illegal and illegitimate'

The mandate extension was widely expected, and opposition politicians and government critics have been speaking out against it for weeks.

On Monday, House of Federation speaker Keria Ibrahim resigned from her position, saying she was "not willing to work with a group that violates the constitution and exercises dictatorship".

Keria is a member of the Tigray People's Liberation Front, which dominated the ruling coalition before Abiy came to power in 2018 but has since been sidelined and officially parted ways with him last year.

On Wednesday night, two major opposition parties with power bases in Abiy's home Oromia region issued a joint statement rejecting Wednesday's vote as "an illegal and illegitimate act".

The parties, the Oromo Federalist Congress and the Oromo Liberation Front, also warned that it "endangers the peace and stability of the country".

"We would like to express our concern that large-scale mass uprisings which could transform into violence may arise, and this will not only take us back to square one, it will also be difficult to contain for a government already dealing with multiple socioeconomic and public health challenges," the parties said.

If major opposition parties refuse to accept the recommendations from the Council of Constitutional Inquiry, "protests or election boycotts could become a reality, reducing the chances of successful competitive polls in 2021," said William Davison of the International Crisis Group (ICG), a conflict-prevention organisation.

"That would mean more political instability and undermine the planned democratic transition," he said.

Ethiopia recorded its first case of COVID-19 in mid-March.

So far, its official figures are relatively low, with 2,506 cases and 35 deaths.

But more than half of those cases have been recorded in the past 10 days, and the health ministry said last week that cases were "increasing rapidly due to the presence of community transmission".