Ethiopia to re-registr 27,000 voters due to irregularities

By ANTHONY MITCHELL

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, May 2, 2005 (AP) — As many as 27,000 Ethiopian voters have to be re-registered in areas where minors were registered to vote and others were issued more than one voter’s card, the National Election Board chairman said Monday.

Investigators found the irregularities when they were verifying the voters’ rolls following complaints to the National Elections Board ahead of parliamentary elections to be held on May 15, the board’s chairman Kemal Bedri told journalists.

“We sent investigators after complaints of irregularities. We found that in one area it was very bad with underage voters. We felt re-registration should take place,” Kemal said.

He said election officials will re-register voters in 15 polling stations in the northeastern region of Afar and in three polling stations in the southern region of Sidama.

Each polling station has around 1,500 voters.

“We decided that this could not have been done other than deliberately so we decided the police should investigate the matter and we expect action to be taken,” Kemal said.

In some areas voters weren’t even registered to take part in the elections, he added.

There are about 30,000 polling stations across Ethiopia and about 25.6 million of Ethiopia ‘s 71 million people have registered to vote.

This is the second time this year election officials have found irregularities in the voters’ roll.

In March, election officials discovered that children as young as three were registered to vote and many people had more than one voter’s card

The irregularities were found in Hadiya district, 200 kilometers south of the capital, Addis Ababa, where elections in 2000 had to be rerun because of similar abuses. Opposition to the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front is traditionally strong in Hadiya.

Kemal said that opposition allegations of several killings in the run up to the election and the expulsion of representatives of U.S groups aiming to promote democracy in the country had not marred the campaigns.

“The elections are going extremely well,” he said. “I have yet to see campaigns without problems. The system is working as far as I am concerned.”

On Wednesday, the Ethiopian opposition said that two of its members have been shot dead, hundreds of supporters rounded up and imprisoned while dozens others have disappeared in the past month.