On March 10, 2022, CECOE in partnership with NDI organized a one-day consultative forum on “The Role of CSOs in National Dialogue”. The objective of the forum was to raise the awareness of CSO actors on National Dialogue and actively engage them in the process. The forum was moderated by Biniam Abate, CECOE program manager. Speakers at the forum included Dr. Henock Seyoum, Dr. Henok Seyoum, Deputy General Secretary, House of People’s Representatives (HPR) of Ethiopia and Abera Hailemarim, CEOCE’s Executive Director. In his presentation, Dr Henock elucidated over...

On 10 February 2021, a bilateral consultative meeting was held between CECOE’s and NEBE’s representatives who came from different regional offices of the NEBE. The meeting was held under the theme “Elections 2021: Lessons learned”. In his opening remarks, CECOE’s acting director, Abera Hailemariam, highlighted on major activities of the coalition in the areas of: election observation, voter education and election media monitoring. Following the director’s remark, three different presentations were made by CECOE’s program experts, detailing the various...

On 2 October 2021, Coalition of Ethiopian Civil Society Organizations for Election (CECOE) released its observation report on the September 30 elections and South-western Ethiopian people referendum. The 16 pages report has seven sections which expound  the election process, and measures that need to be taken to rectify problems in the process.    Highlights of the report : Arrival at Polling Stations To assess if polling station officials got to the polling stations in  time to open , CECOE observers were instructed to arrive at polling...

As the post-election phase is an integral part of any democratic elections, CECOE is observing the post-election environment in parts of the country where elections and referendums  were held on 30 September 2021. CECOE is conducting the post-election environment observation by deploying   50 highly trained observers. Using the checklist, they are provided with, the observers will assess if there are disputes over the probity of the election process or complaints on the official results. Furthermore, due to the nature of election cycles communicating...

As part of its efforts to set an exemplary election observation system in Ethiopia, CECOE established an Election Situation Room (ESR) in which it received and analyzed election observation data sent via text from observers. It is to be recalled that CECOE deployed close to 1000 observers to observe the September 30 elections and referendum. On the voting day, the observers, who went through  meticulous training on election observation and reporting, were sending observation data to the ESR in real-time. Over 40 data – clerks who were working in two shifts...