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By Jalene Gemeda
Posted to the web on May 6, 2010 |
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May 5 , 2010 (ADDIS ABABA) — A language teacher in Ethiopia's western Shoa is running for office in the May 23 election. Tsige Tibebu Wakjira teaches students Afaan Oromoo during the day and runs for parliament on the weekends.
“If I win,” she said, “I will focus my efforts on stopping the human rights abuses done by the ruling party on the people of Oromiya.”
Tsige is a 35-year-old teacher at Ejeree Cangaree Junior School in Ejeree wereda in western Shoa. She made the same promise five years ago when she ran for the same parliamentary seat.She thought she had won, but the results were different. She said there was election fraud: Only 240 voters were registered by the final vote was 500.
She hopes her party, the Ethiopian Democratic Party, will win this election.
Tsige planned to take time off from her classroom teaching to campaign and received a signed agreement allowing her to take leave for politics. But the government later said she couldn’t leave, so she takes her flyers to on market days.
She is positive she will win this year. “The people who have me their vote last time are still here.”
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