Board Announces Tentative Polling Schedule

Oct 31 , 2020

The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) has announced the tentative polling date of the sixth national election to be held between the end of May and early June 2021. Voter registration is expected to take place from mid-January to February, while candidate registration and campaigns are tentatively scheduled from early to mid-February and to the third week of February until the election, respectively. The tentative date was announced at a consultative meeting organised by the Board for civil society organisations and media. During the meeting, participants deliberated on some of the precautionary measures to be taken while voting during the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In line with this, the Board requested an additional budget of 1.1 billion Br for precautionary measures and deployment of additional people at polling stations. Training of poll workers is expected to take place between mid-December and mid-February, according to the schedule. The Board had initially scheduled to hold the general elections on August 29, 2020, while election campaigns would have been held from May 28 to August 24 prior to the onset of the pandemic.