ADDIS ABABA
Ethiopia's ruling party is poised to win the country's parliamentary elections in Addis Ababa as unofficial preliminary results show it winning 70 percent of the vote in Sunday polls.
Vote counting began across the country on Sunday after polls closed following parliamentary elections.
Poll results posted at polling stations nationwide on Monday showed the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which won the past four elections, poised to retain power for another five year term.
Preliminary results indicated that Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom, Minister of Information Technology and Communication Debre Tsion Gebremichael, Special Adviser to the Prime Minister Getachew Reda had all won their respective constituencies.
Prominent opposition leaders Merera Gudina, Beyene Petros and Gebru Asrat of the Forum for Democracy and Justice (MEDREK), along with Chane Kebede of the Ethiopian Democratic Party, all lost in their respective constituencies, according to the same preliminary results.
Some 36.8 million voters, including 17.8 million females, were registered to cast votes in the elections. Ethiopia's electoral commission on Sunday described voter turnout during the one-day poll as "very high".
Fifty-eight political parties competed for 547 parliamentary seats and seats on the country's regional state councils. Altogether, parties fielded a total of 5,819 candidates.
The EPRDF, for its part, fielded a total of 1,350 candidates – a good deal more than any of the country's opposition parties.
Ethiopia's parliament uses a simple majority system, in which the party that wins the most seats appoints a prime minster and new government that will be drawn up in early October.
