By Jason McLure | Bloomberg
Ethiopia’s opposition criticized media rules that give Meles Zenawi’s ruling party and its four main allies 16 times as much airtime as the largest opposition party ahead of May 23 elections.
“In general the media is controlled, used, monopolized by the ruling party,” Negasso Gidada, a former president of Ethiopia who is now a leader of the opposition Medrek alliance, said in a phone interview yesterday. “Our stand is that the time allocation is unfair.”
The Ethiopian Broadcast Authority earlier this year awarded Meles’ Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front and four allied parties 199 hours and 15 minutes of time on state radio and 31 hours and 30 minutes on state television, according to figures from the EBA. Medrek, the country’s largest opposition grouping, was awarded 12 hours 15 minutes of radio time and 1 hour 45 minutes of television time.
“We have negotiated about this on our party council and they are not part of that council,” Hailemariam Desalegn, parliamentary whip for the EPRDF, said by phone today. “I don’t see unfairness in this issue.”
The Ethiopian government owns the only television broadcasters in the country, and the Horn of Africa nation’s radio waves are almost entirely controlled by government or ruling party-affiliated stations.
The allocation of airtime was based largely on the number of seats in parliament held by each party, according to Desta Tesfaw, director general of the broadcasting agency. A second, smaller award of airtime will be made in the coming weeks based on the number of candidates fielded by each party, he said.
‘Notable Opening’
Prior to the country’s last elections in 2005, “there was a notable opening of the state media to the political parties contesting the elections,” said a report from the European Union electoral observer mission that year.
Opposition parties won more than 170 seats in the country’s 547-member parliament in that vote, though many opposition members refused to take their seats to protest what they said was vote rigging by the ruling party in some areas.
In ensuing demonstrations, security forces loyal to Meles killed 193 people. Dozens of senior opposition figures were jailed on treason charges.
“Meles and his ruling party appear intent on preventing a repeat of the relatively open 2005 elections which produced a strong opposition showing,” Dennis Blair, the U.S. director of national intelligence, wrote in a report to the Senate on Feb. 2.
3 thoughts on “Ethiopia opposition criticizes airtime allocation ahead of vote”
I do not understand, why the opposition parties did not say this before the debate. More than those beasts(Woyanes), you opposion parties are saying and acting in the way that ruling party gain strength and we are ashemed of you.
Ethiopians hate Meles so much, if a free and fair election is possible in Ethiopia, the oppositions will win with a landslide without spending that much money and time on government control ETV.
The ballots of the members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church can make a big difference in the May 23, 2010 Election.
To get these important Church people’s ballots, it is believable that Aba Paulos, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church at home, may swing the balance of the ballots by anathematizing any member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church if that member of his Church votes for the opposition party.
To anathematize means to prevent a member of the Church from receiving the Holy Communion and preventing him/her from participating in any Church activities. The anathema can be lifted only when the anathematized person repents and confesses his sins to his soul father (የንስሐ አባት) if Aba Paulos, in fact, considers voting for the opposition party is a cardinal sin.
It is well known to most of the Ethiopian people if not to the whole world that there are three evil persons in Ethiopia that can cause the entire system of the Woyanne government either to move forward or backward or to completely halt it from moving or functioning properly if its movement is against the wills of these three evils: Meles Seitanawi, his wife Jezebel (Azeb), and Aba Paulos.
HOW TO GET THE VOTES OF THE MEMBERS OF THE ETHIOPIAN ORTHODOX TEWAHIDO CHURCH
Meles’ wife Jezebel (Azeb) will summon Aba Paulos to her palace and warn him to work hard to influence the members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church to vote for her husband, and if he fails to do so, she would threaten him that she would restore Abune Merkorios to the patriarchate and depose Aba Paulos. Then the threatened and intimidated Patriarch, Aba Paulos, will immediately convene all the Ethiopian Bishops and Archbishops and harangue them with a firing sermon that he would stop paying them their meager salaries unless they listen very carefully and do what he has told them to do: To rise up early in the morning on May 23, go to their respective churches, ring the church bell, and as soon as the priests, the deacons, the debteras, and the memhirs are assembled by the Church bell in the Church, tell them unequivocally that the May 23 Election will determine the survival of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church, so they must encourage all the faithful to vote for the Christian Meles Zenawi, who has been holding the country together.
After the priests, the deacons, the debteras, and the memhirs have heard the disturbing message from Aba Paulos to vote for Meles Seitanawi, they will, as the fathers of the souls of millions of Ethiopian Christians, call their spiritual sons and daughters for a big meeting, and at the meeting they would tell them that they should vote for Meles, if not, the priests would not bless the weddings of their sons and daughters or they would not conduct funeral services for their dead.
This is probably one of the schemes the members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church may use under duress from Aba Paulos to vote for Meles Seitanawi; it may be also the same technique the Ethiopian Arab Muslims use when they go out to cast their ballots.
Meles Seitanawi may command Al Amoudi for an emergency meeting at unspecified location and would tell him seriously that Meles has protected Al Amoudi’s assets from being appropriated by the Woyanne government, and also that Meles has leased thousands of acres of Ethiopian fertile lands to Al Amoudi plus the gold mine; therefore, for such favors, Al Amoudi must go out and convince the Ethiopian Arab Muslims to vote for Meles Seitanawi.
Trembling in front of Meles Seitanawi, the wealthy Muslim, Al Amoudi, quickly goes out and enters one of the Mosques in Addis Ababa and invites the Imams, the Mullahs, the Fukras, the sheks, and the many prominent Ethiopian Arab-Muslim merchants. He then lectures them in Arabic and alerts them that their freedoms they have been enjoying so far, the rights they have to send their children to any private or government schools, the peace they have with their Christian neighbors, the voices they have in the parliament, the privileges they posses to build their Mosques throughout the land of Ethiopia, and the permission they have been given to spread Islam in the Christian land of Ethiopia are in great danger unless these Ethiopian Arab-Muslim leaders go out and tell the ordinary Ethiopian Arab Muslims to come out in great number and vote for Meles Seitanawi.
This kind of manipulating voters by Meles Seitanawi may also exist in the army, in the teachers’ union, in the factory workers, in the college and university professors, in the hospital workers, in the Ethiopian peasant association, and even among the high school and college students.
So, how can the opposition party will have a chance against all these odds to win the May 23, 2010 Election? It would be a miracle if we indeed win!