ADDIS ABABA, 26 December, 2020, (TON): Ethiopia will hold a parliamentary election on June 5, the electoral board said on Friday, as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed seeks to quell political and ethnic violence in several regions.

Ethiopia will hold its parliamentary election on June 5 next year, the National Electoral Board said Friday, after polls scheduled for August 2020 were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's Prosperity Party, a pan-Ethiopian movement he established a year ago, faces opposition from increasingly strident ethnically-based parties seeking more sovereignty for the regions they represent.

Africa's second most populous nation with some 110 million citizens, Ethiopia has a federal system and 10 regional governments, many of whom have border disputes or are experiencing unrest.

The National Electoral Board said next year’s calendar for polls did not include an election in Tigray. It said the date for a Tigray vote would be set once an interim government, which was established during the conflict, opened election offices.

The tenure of both the parliament and Abiy was due to expire in October but was extended because the national vote was postponed from August this year due to the coronavirus crisis. The delayed ballot was a factor that provoked tensions between Abiy and the dissident area of Tigray, which ultimately saw the prime minister dispatch troops to the region last month in a military offensive that left thousands dead and led to tens of thousands of others seeking refuge.

In the northern Tigray region, thousands of people are believed to have died and 950,000 have fled their homes since fighting erupted on November 4.

Tigray held its own elections in September in defiance of the federal government, which declared the polls illegal.