Criticized Nobel laureate expected to
Photo: Amanuel Sileshi/AP/TT

Criticized Nobel laureate expected to win landslide victory

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, but has since been criticized for increasingly authoritarian rule. As Ethiopia now goes to the polls, he is expected to win a landslide victory.

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The queues at the polling stations in Addis Ababa are long on Monday.

"It is a critical moment when the future of the country is being determined," 38-year-old Binyam Gideyelem, who is voting for the first time, told the AFP news agency.

However, analysts predict an almost guaranteed landslide victory for Abiy Ahmed, who came to power in 2018. The following year he received the Nobel Peace Prize for the peace agreement with neighboring Eritrea, but since then his rule has become increasingly authoritarian and violent, with harsh crackdowns on dissent.

No elections are being held in the Tigray region, where a brutal war between local leaders and Ahmed's central government has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives since 2020.

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AuthorTT News AgencyEnglish edition by Sweden Herald, adapted for our readers
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