But his drive to open up Ethiopia's authoritarian one-party state has also unleashed ethnic violence Online Cigarettes Store USA as different groups and regions jostle for power and resources.
Desta Ledamo, chief administrator of Sidama, said the election "shows the world that a civilised power struggle can take place in Ethiopia".
Local election observers and voters also reported no major issues during Wednesday's ballot.
If approved, the new state would be largely based on ethnic divisions, handing tax-raising powers and control Newport Cigarettes Shop over schools, police, health and other services to the Sidamas, who would be in the majority in the state.
Excitement is high on the streets of the regional capital Hawassa, roughly 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of Addis Ababa.
Results are expected by Friday, said Soleyana Shimeles, spokeswoman for the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia.
Every morning, Mrs. Chen dons her bright purple tai chi pajamas and joins the dozen or so other members of Hongmen Martial Arts Group for practice outside Chongqing’s Jiangnan Stadium. But a few months ago, she was in such a rush to join their whirling sword-dance routine that she dropped her purse. Fortunately, a security guard noticed it lying in the public square via one of the overhead security cameras. He placed it at the lost and found, Cheap Newport 100s cigarettes where Mrs. Chen gratefully retrieved it later.
“Were it not for these cameras, someone might have stolen it,” Mrs. Chen, who asked to be identified by only her surname, tells TIME on a smoggy morning in China’s sprawling central megacity. “Having these cameras everywhere makes me feel safe.”
What sounds like a lucky escape is almost to be expected in Chongqing, which has the dubious distinction of being the world’s most surveilled city. The seething mass of 15.35 million people straddling the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers boasted 2.58 million surveillance cameras in 2019, according to an analysis published in August by the tech-research website Comparitech. That’s a frankly Orwellian ratio of one CCTV camera for every 5.9 citizens—or 30 times their prevalence in Washington, D.C.