Delays in Ethiopia’s vote count increase risk of election fraud – EU

By ANTHONY MITCHELL

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, May 25, 2005 (AP) — European Union election observers warned that Ethiopia’s elections were being undermined by delays in the vote count that are raising the risk of fraud.

Ana Gomes, the chief election observer from the European Union, gives a media briefing, Tuesday, May 17, 2005 on their findings of the Ethiopian elections in Addis Ababa. (AP).

The trickle of results, conflicting claims of victory by ruling and opposition parties and denial of access to the state-run media for government opponents were threatening the entire election process, EU observers said in a statement Wednesday.

“These practices, taken as a whole, are seriously undermining the transparency and fairness of the elections,” the statement said. “They also risk increasing the scope for manipulation and consequently putting in doubt public confidence in the process.”

Early results showed the opposition making strong gains — it had held just 12 seats in the departing 547-seat parliament — but a lead for the ruling party that has held power since ending an oppressive dictatorship in 1991.

So far, results from just 157 constituencies have been released since May 15 elections, with 61 seats going to the opposition. Tension was high as the nation awaited comprehensive results.

The National Electoral Board had promised to release provisional results last Saturday, but only a handful of counts came in. It has been releasing new counts each day.

The EU “regrets the way in which the counting of the votes at the constituency level is being conducted, as well as the way in which the release of results is being handled by the electoral authorities, the government and the political parties, especially the EPRDF,” or the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, the statement said.

The opposition has repeatedly accused the ruling party of fraud, though foreign monitors have said the elections were the most open in Ethiopia’s history.

The opposition threatened to boycott parliament if the allegations of vote fraud were not properly investigated by a joint team that should include representatives of political parties, electoral authorities and international observers.

EU observers had said earlier that the vote was “the most genuinely competitive elections the country has experienced,” despite some problems and human rights violations.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, known as one of the continent’s more progressive leaders, has pledged that his sometimes authoritarian government would introduce greater democracy. Many saw the polls as a test of his commitment to reform.

Ethiopia was an absolute monarchy under Emperor Haile Selassie until the mid-1970s, when a brutal Marxist junta overthrew him.

Civil wars wracked the ethnically fractured country in the 1980s, and famine took as many as 1 million lives. Meles’ rebel group overthrew the junta in 1991. Meles became president, then prime minister in 1995. He retained his seat in the May 15 elections.