Ethiopian turnout 90 percent, counting underway

By CHRIS TOMLINSON

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, May 16, 2005 (AP) — After a stunning turnout of 90 percent that indicated voters were optimistic Ethiopia was headed toward greater democracy, officials were counting ballots in the parliamentary race Monday.

Ethiopian national electoral board Chairman Kemal Bedri holds a ballot paper during a news conference in the capital Addis Ababa May 16, 2005. (Reuters).

Some polling stations were completing their individual counts and posting results Monday. Nationwide provisional results are expected on Saturday and final results will be announced June 8.

Opposition politicians complained of irregularities and threatened to reject the results, leading the prime minister to ban demonstrations and put the capital’s police under his direct command. But Sunday’s vote had been peaceful and international observers — allowed to monitor voting here for the first time — reported no serious problems.

The election was conducted “in a generally smooth, efficient and peaceful manner,” said Kemal Bedri, chairman of the National Electoral Board, who added turnout of registered voters was 90 percent.

“This really was the most transparent elections we’ve ever had. We don’t have any complaints,” Kemal told journalists.

The worst problem foreign election observers found Sunday was the crowds, with some voters waiting hours to cast their ballots. Those still in line after polls officially closed at 6 p.m. Sunday were allowed to vote, and polling in Addis Ababa lasted until 5 a.m. (0200GMT) Monday.

A senior opposition official said after the vote that his party’s observers had been chased out of polling centers where ballots were being tallied.

“In many places our poll watchers are being kicked out and we don’t know who is counting the vote,” said Berhanu Nega, vice chairman of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy.

On Monday, Berhanu said his poll observers reported that the opposition had won at least 20 of the 23 parliamentary seats in Addis Ababa and an uncertain number of seats in other urban areas.

“People are tired of living in an atmosphere without freedom,” he said.

In polling stations in Addis Ababa checked by The Associated Press, the opposition had an overwhelming majority of votes. An election official, who did not want to be identified further, said that the opposition had made significant gains in the federal parliament.

The ruling party, however, is expected to do well in rural areas, where 85 percent of the population lives.

Mikhail Degefu, a 23-year-old student, expressed happiness at the showing of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy at a polling station in Addis Ababa, where the opposition group was shown winning 95 percent of the vote.

“It was a fair election,” he said.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, known as one of the continent’s more progressive leaders, has pledged his sometimes authoritarian government would introduce greater democracy.

Many had pointed to Sunday’s race between the ruling coalition that ended an oppressive dictatorship in 1991 and new opposition parties who promise greater liberalization as a test of his commitment to reform.

In the last vote in 2000 — seen as less democratic and drawing a markedly lower turnout than on Sunday — the ruling coalition took 534 of 547 seats in the lower house of parliament.

Following Sunday’s vote, Meles said, “I have heard the comments of the foreign observers and the elections were peaceful and democratic.”

Possibly fearing action by opposition parties, he declared a ban on demonstrations and open meetings in Addis Ababa, effective Monday, and took over command of the capital’s police. Opposition leader Berhanu charged the moves were an attempt to cover up voting fraud.

Ana Gomes, the top EU observer, was critical of an opposition call, made hours before polls closed, for results to be rejected.

“It is a bit difficult to understand why those who are also responsible for the success, want to discredit it so early,” she said Sunday.

Gomes had told journalists there were some scattered irregularities and violence, but that generally her observers told her voting went well and peacefully, but very slowly.

More than 500 foreign observers, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and 24 teams from his human rights and development center, were monitoring the polls.

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.