The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) is set up of nine members whose recruitment and appointment is normally made in line with constitutional criteria that include experience and expertise among others. While those criteria are cardinals of the constitution, the establishment of the current Board has come up with unprecedented consent of main political parties contesting in the up-coming elections in the country. That was because of the goodwill of the government and the political parties as an expression of their commitments to make the coming elections as well as others that would follow free, fair, democratic, peaceful and legitimate more than ever.
Ever since its establishment, the current NEBE has been undertaking several measures primarily with the objective of upgrading its own executive efficiency so as to discharge the constitutional mandates entrusted to it by the peoples of Ethiopia as well as to improve the quality of elections in the country. In this regard, it has reviewed all the last three elections and drawn all the best lessons from them. It has also gathered best practices of other countries such as Botswana, Ghana, Germany, South Africa and USA, where in some it has deployed electoral observation missions. After formulating the best experiences gained in such away in line with the objective realities of the country, it has also gained its own practical experience as it has successfully carried out Local and By-Elections in 2000 E.C. as well as in fact some referendums across the country.
The Board, which laid out its organizational structure from the federal to the lowest polling stations, is currently undertaking its duty with a number of permanent and temporary offices it has established across the country. The Board at the federal level has an office headed by one chief and two deputies. The office within its own structure has reorganized 13 departments staffed with 60 new employees with pertinent education and experience and facilitated them with essential equipment.
The NEBE has established nine electoral coordinating branch offices, one in each regional state as well as two others in the two city administrations. The 11 branch offices are operating with permanent and temporary staff. With such organizational set up, the number of electoral constituencies established by the NEBE is 547 with the deployment of 1,641 electoral officers.
A major change that has been introduced to the electoral exercise of the country is the reduction of the number of voters served in a single polling station. The number of voters that are going to cast their ballots in a single polling station has been lowered to be not more than 1,000 from up to 4,500 in the past. While the change was certainly made in line with Article 22, Sub-Article 6 of the newly amended electoral law proclamation number 532/1999, which provides that the number of voters to be accommodated in a single polling station must not excel 1000, the rationale behind is easing the burden of voters, who used to experience day long queue as was the case in Elections 2005 and prior to that.
With such a sweeping change, the number of polling stations established across the country is more than 43,500 with the deployment of more than 220,000 electoral officers.
In general, 60-70 per cent of the current electoral officials deployed at various strata are newly recruited by the Board and of course in line with the criteria set by the electoral law of the country, namely on the ground of efficiency, independence and non-partisanship. The new recruitment of officers has primarily focused on better education and experience as well as on youth and women.
It is also worth mentioning that all the electoral executives deployed at various levels have been trained by the Board on electoral execution guidelines, working systems and procedures so as to upgrade their efficiency in undertaking elections.
It is also important to note that following the trainings that the electoral executives have successfully completed the first stage of voters and candidates’ registration in the run up to the up-coming elections in May.
In general, the prospect towards the up-coming elections is positive for several reasons: The nomination of the Board members was unusually carried out with the involvement and mutual consent of political parties which will be contesting in the up-coming elections; the Board has coordinated the best experiences from the last elections as well as the experiences of other countries and to the objective realities of the country; the electoral officers have been recruited, deployed and trained. While the executive capacity of the Board with limited resource and personnel as was the case in the last elections admired by external bodies like the Carter Center, the Board is now in a better position to conduct elections of the higher quality more than any other time.
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