Ethiopia sets paliamentary election for May 15

ADDIS ABABA, Sept 24 (Reuters) – Ethiopia will hold the next elections for its 547-seat federal parliament on May 15, 2005, the National Election Board announced on Friday, unveiling a timetable for polls held every five years.

Divisions among Ethiopia’s various opposition groups have undermined their performance in previous elections, dominated by the ruling Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

The next polls are to be contested by 65 parties, including an array of members of the EPRDF and allied parties, and a wide variety of opposition groups in the ethnically and linguistically diverse Horn of Africa country.

The EPRDF, which ousted Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991, won 479 seats in the assembly in the last elections in 2000.

Results of the elections in the country of at least 67 million people will be announced on June 8, 2005.