Ethiopian Electoral Authority Rejects Call for Election Rerun

June 9 (Bloomberg) -- Ethiopia’s electoral authority blocked opposition calls for a rerun of last month’s parliamentary elections in which the ruling party won 99 percent of seats.

The National Electoral Board also rejected complaints by opposition-party observers of intimidation by government supporters and state security, Mohammed Abdurahman, a spokesman for the authority, said in a mobile-phone interview today from the capital, Addis Ababa.

“Not a single complaint was supported by tangible evidence,” he said. “The board has rejected all of them.”

Opposition parties will use “all available peaceful options” to get the board to reverse its decision not to allow a rerun, said Temesgen Zewdie, vice president of the Unity for Democracy and Justice Party that is part of Medrek, the country’s biggest opposition grouping.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s party won control of all but three seats in the 547-member parliament, according to results posted on the electoral board’s website last month. Meles is a former Marxist guerrilla leader who has ruled sub- Saharan Africa’s second-most populous nation and its top coffee producer since 1991.

The electoral board also rejected complaints relating to pre-election day irregularities and criticized the opposition for repeating concerns from the campaign period it had already addressed.

Irregularities

Medrek, a coalition of eight parties, and the opposition All Ethiopia Unity Party claimed last month’s election should be repeated because of irregularities during the campaign and on voting day on May 23.

“Medrek’s position is that we have been cheated out of the election and it should be repeated,” Temesgen said. “We have submitted to the NEBE convincing evidence that it was rigged.”

The board’s management of the election process was praised by a European Union observer mission, though it criticized the “lack of level playing field for all parties” and said the election “fell short of certain international commitments.”

The Ethiopian government has rejected all criticism of a process it described as “free and fair.”

To contact the reporter on this story: William Davison in Addis Ababa via Johannesburg at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .