US urges Ethiopia’s opposition MPs to take up their seats

Sept 16, 2005 (NEW YORK) — The United States on Friday urged Ethiopia’s opposition parties to take up their seats in parliament after the country’s disputed election and strongly urged the new government to address poll irregularities.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States would work with other countries and the Ethiopian government to “strengthen” the electoral process after reported problems with the polls, which were certified on Sept. 5.

“We strongly urge all the political parties to participate in the political process and to play responsible roles as the elected representatives of the Ethiopian people,” McCormack said in a statement.

“We urge the Ethiopian government and all political parties to address the deficiencies in the electoral process, to avoid violence, and to cooperate in advancing democracy in Ethiopia,” he added.

McCormack said Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s governing Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front had the responsibility to reach out to the opposition parties and convince them to take their seats.

Ethiopia’s main opposition parties, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy and the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces, have alleged widespread fraud in the poll and threatened not to take their seats when parliament convenes in a few weeks. The two parties won a total of 161 seats in the 547-seat parliament.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, an international poll observer, gave qualified support for the election and also urged parliamentarians not to boycott.

Carter, whose organization sent some 50 observers to monitor voting, said at a news conference in Addis Ababa that while the election was not perfect it was better than previous ones in 1995 and 2000.

McCormack went further and said the elections stood out as a milestone in creating a new, multi-party political system in one of Africa’s largest and most important countries.

(Reuters/ST)