Ethiopian opposition threatens not to accept poll results

ADDIS ABABA, May 14 (AFP) — On the eve of general elections, Ethiopia’s two main opposition groups on Saturday accused the government of arresting hundreds of their poll monitors and threatened not to accept the results unless they were freed.

Coalition for Unity and Democracy supporters give the party’s victory sign and wave Ethiopian flags, Sunday, May 8, 2005 during an election rally in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. (AP).

The government promptly denied the charged, accusing the groups of deliberate lying to try to discredit the election for political reasons. But it did not directly address the arrest claims.

The Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) and the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) said if their activists were not released and allowed to monitor Sunday’s vote, the election would be meaningless.

“If the government doesn’t release these observers by tomorrow, we are not going to accept the results of the polls,” said Beyene Petros, vice chairman of the UEDF, which said several hundred of its monitors had been detained.

“In the absence of our poll watchers in the election, we don’t see why we should accept the outcome of the election,” he said.

The CUD said that more than 1,000 of its observers had been arrested in what it said was a continuation of malfeasance that the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) had been committing for weeks.

“If the election is about to take place without our observers, we can’t accept that,” said deputy CUD leader Berhanu Nega.

Beyene and Berhanu made the allegations at a hastily called news conference in Addis Ababa just over 12 hours before voting is to begin in Ethiopia’s third election since the ouster of a Soviet-backed dictatorship in 1991.

They could not offer precise numbers as to exactly how many of their observers had allegedly been detained but said the arrests had occured over the past three days.

Minister of Information Berekat Simon, also the EPRDF campaign spokesman, said the two groups had been spreading misinformation for months and should not be believed.

“Since August they have been fabricating lies to disrupt the election process,” he told AFP. “They have once again used allegations to discredit the whole process by propagating lies on the eve of the election date.

The chairman of the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia, Kemal Bedri, said he was taken aback by the scale of the accusations.

“I’m caught by surprise,” he told AFP. “I don’t think it’s true, but we are investigating.”

The opposition allegations surfaced shortly after a human rights watchdog complained its observers were also being hindered from getting to polling stations.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Council said the deployment of 1,644 of its observers was being prevented by the election board in violation of a court order which overturned an earlier ban by the panel on most local observers.

In addition to their latest complaints, the rights group and the opposition rejected a rosy assessement of the campaign from former US president Jimmy Carter.

On Friday, Carter, the most high profile of more than 300 foreigners invited to observe the election, said there had been no pattern of intimidation or inteference in the election by the ruling party or the government.

Beyene of the UEDF said his group and the CUD had laid out specific complaints to Carter in a meeting shortly after he made the remarks and hoped he would modify his opinion.

Despite the intensity of the allegations, the capital was calm and residents went about their business although security was tight with heavily armed special forces and police patrolling the streets.

Although there are no fears of widespread violence, observers said there was potential for sporadic skirmishes and the UEDF refused to join a polling day truce signed up to by the EPRDF, the CUD and other parties.

Some 26 million of Ethiopia’s 70 million poverty stricken inhabitants are registered to cast ballots for candidates in eight of nine state legislatures and 524 of the 547 parliamentary seats on Sunday.

The poll is Ethiopia’s third since Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s EPRDF came to power 14 years ago, its second since the advent of multi-party politics and the first under international scrutiny.

His party, which has a lock on at least 100 uncontested parliamentary seats, is heavily favored to win despite .

In an interview with AFP on Friday, Meles allowed that there had been some violations of the country’s electoral code but said they would not tarnish what he called an unprecedented fair and open process.