ADDIS ABABA, April 12 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian House of Peoples and Representatives (HPR) on Thursday postponed local elections by a margin of one year timeframe due to challenges attributed to incessant unrests.
The motion that was endorsed by the Ethiopian parliament's lower house on Thursday asserted that despite the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia's attempt to realize the necessary prerequisites to undertake the election in its scheduled timeline, "security challenges that were consistently observed n different parts of the country have affected preparations to effectively conduct the elections."
The local elections that were previously scheduled to be held during the 2017-2018 Ethiopian fiscal year has now postponed to the 2018-2019 fiscal year, with majority support from members of the parliament.
The postponed elections are mainly conducted in Ethiopia's two self-administered municipals and their surroundings that are the capital Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa, which are the two largest cities of Ethiopia respectively.
Ethiopia's second largest city, Dire Dawa, located along the border of Ethiopia's largest regional states Oromia and Somali were affected by sporadic ethnic disputes over the delineation of the two ethnic groups' common boundary.
The East African country has been facing recurrent protests since the second half of 2016 that were mainly driven by socioeconomic and political marginalization, especially in Ethiopia's two largest Oromia and Amhara regional states.
In addition to the postponement of local elections, the political crisis has led to the resignation of Ethiopia's former Prime Minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, forcing the ruling coalition - Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front's (EPRDF) - to elect a new chairperson, Abiy Ahmed, who eventually was appointed as Prime Minister of the country last week.
