Ethiopia: opposition party rejects election results
By Guyo Imano
One of Ethiopia’s main opposition,
Blue party rejected both the election process and preliminary result announced
by national electoral board of Ethiopia on Wednesday
“The Blue party does not accept the
process as free and fair and does not accept the outcome of unhealthy and
undemocratic elections.” the opposition party lament in an official statement
issued on Friday.
Partial results announced by the country’s
national electoral board of Ethiopia(NEBE) indicated that the ruling EPRDF
party and its allied regional political
organization have so far sweep all 442 parliamentary seats announced out of
possible 547 seat.
“This 100 percent win by the regime
is a message of disgrace “statement continues, adding that the overwhelming
victory was an indication that a “multi-party system is on its way to burial in
Ethiopia.”
The Blue party, which is youngest
political force in Ethiopia and has participated in election for the first time,
accused the ruling party of using authoritarian tactics to guarantee victory.
The Blue party’s spokesperson, Yonatan
Tesfaye argue that candidates were denied for registration and others were
illegally cancelled by the election board after successfully registering them.
Tesfaye claimed that 200 party
candidates were denied the right to stand for parliament and 52 party members
and many other supporters were arrested in the run up to the polls.
“The security forces and cadres of
EPRDF continued in harassing, beating, arresting and some cases killing
candidates and potential observers of opposition party without any valid
reasons and the order of the courts. “he said.
“We don’t think there is an
independent justice system to deal with our complaints, we will continue with
our ‘peaceful’ struggle,” the spokesperson concluded.
The AU observers mission, the only
monitoring group deployed to oversee the election process has said that Sundays
parliamentary elections were “peaceful,calm and credible” and in line with
African union standards.
However, the two main adjectives
missing during their brief statement were the words “free and fair” therefore,
this could mean there were widespread irregularities.
Ironically, the EU has expressed
their satisfaction by commending the NEBE for their “hard work”
According to the state-run Ethiopia
broadcasting corporation (EBC),the EU took note of the preliminary statement of
AU election observation mission, including the areas for further improvement
identified by the mission
The AU added the electoral process was discussed in the framework
of the EU-Ethiopia political dialogue with the government and with main
political actors involved.
Meanwhile, the Oromo Liberation Front
army clashed with the Ethiopia militias along the Kenyan town of moyale on the
eve of FA CUP final between arsenal and aston villa.arsenal put aston villa to
sword by thumping them 4 nil.gunners lift the
trophy for a record 12 times.
However the number of casualties
are not known.
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