The National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) has been given the responsibility of registering political parties in Ethiopia based on the National Election Board Establishment Proclamation No. 1133/2019 and the Ethiopian Electoral, Political Parties Registration, and Election’s Code of Conduct Proclamation 1162/2019.
Accordingly, in Article 66 of Proclamation No. 1162/2019, it is stipulated that any political party can act as a political party in Ethiopia only when it is registered by the Board and obtains a certificate of legal personality in accordance with the law.
Political parties can apply for a temporary certificate to the Board based on article 66 of the proclamation in their effort to be recognized as a legal party and while seeking for cooperation from concerned bodies in the due process of being registered as a legal entity. The Board in turn provides them a three months temporary accreditation certificate. It is known that political parties that have obtained a temporary registration license from the Board can only use the temporary license to perform the activities required to register the party according to the proclamation.
However, it has been observed that some political parties with only temporary certificates had held party meetings and given interviews, without submitting all the necessary documents that would enable them to have legal status.
Accordingly, the Board reminds political parties that they can only use the temporary license to perform the activities required to register the party according to the proclamation. Therefore, the Board would like to inform that these parties are not allowed to engage in other activities with a temporary registration certificate and without being given a certificate of legal identity. Besides this, responsible bodies and organizations are not allowed to make contacts with political parties only with a three months temporary certificate, until they are given a permanent certification of legal entity.
The National Election Board of Ethiopia