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Ruling party victory celebration turned into protest rally

Posted on , Updated on by EthiopianReview.com

European Union’s election observation mission smacked Meles Zenawi’s smug off his bestial face today by announcing that the election was rigged. This came on the heels of Human Rights Watch’s stinging criticism of how the ruling junta conducted Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Ethiopia. What was planned as a victory celebration party this morning in Addis Ababa turned into a protest rally by Woyanne junta against the European Union and HRW, as Bloomberg’s Jason McLure reports from Addis Ababa:

(Bloomberg) — Tens of thousands of supporters of Ethiopia’s ruling party staged a protest in the capital, Addis Ababa, against a Human Rights Watch report critical of the country’s elections.

Prime Minister Genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi’s Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front crime family is headed for victory in the May 23 vote after it garnered 6.8 million of the 7.3 million votes tallied so far. An estimated 29 million ballots were cast.

Human Rights Watch said yesterday the government and ruling party officials used a combination of harassment and arrests and withholding food aid and jobs to thwart opponents in the run up to the election. The government has denied the allegations, saying economic growth in Ethiopia of more than 7 percent annually over the past five years has bolstered its support.

“This election does not concern Human Rights Watch,” Mulugeta Gebegiorgis, a 38-year-old driver, said in an interview in Addis Ababa’s central Meskel Square ahead of a planned speech by Meles. Police maintained a heavy presence on the streets of the city, as protesters waved placards with slogans such as ‘We choose our leaders, no one else,’ and ‘Election observers yes, Trojan horses no.’

A former Marxist guerrilla leader who has ruled Africa’s second-most populous nation since 1991, Meles, 55, has been a key ally in the fight against Islamic militants in neighboring Somalia. Under Meles, Ethiopia, Africa’s top coffee producer, has pursued an economic model that mixes a large state role with foreign investment in roads, dams and power.

6 thoughts on “Ruling party victory celebration turned into protest rally”

  1. The Ethiopian people will never be allowed to vote the tyrant out, legally and peacefully. Thus Meles zenawi and his tyrannical regime must be removed by force.

  2. “Islamic militants in neighboring Somalia” is very misleading statement. All evidence indicate that there were no Islamic militants present in Somalia during Mele’s invasion of Somalia . On the contrary, It was during that brief Islamic Court’s administration that Somalia ever enjoyed peace and stability after more than 17 years of civil war and unrest. The problem was the Islamic Court’s reluctance to install tribal government (tribal “federalism”) modeled after Ethiopian’s tribal federalism. This was against American interest which had imperialistic desire to use Ethiopian-modeled government all over Africa to sustain the global economic status-quo which is not fair and equitable to Third World countries. America and the whole world knows very well that there are no global terrorist active in that part of the world which are a threat to America or Ethiopia. America used the pretext as a cover to dismantle the popular government in Somalia.

  3. Meles will make sure to stay in power as long as he gets support from the west and there is no viable strong oposition group that will use real peoples power to shake his pants down!
    This dictator like any one of them listens only to real peoples power!
    We must stand together and fight as one opposition group!

  4. Where is Ginbot 7? Dr Birhanu? Andargachew Tsige? where are you guys? People need you now, but you keep quiet. why? Elias? Why are you guys not harvesting the anger?

  5. According to a reliable sourse I talked to, just as it had been during the 2005 election again on Sunday’s elction the so called EPRDF party has got 0 (zero)in Addis Ababa. As this source has said he suspects that the result maight be the same also in other areas of the coutry.This person is member of the ruling party (EPRDF) and is also a kebele administration staff. He was also assigned in one of the polling stations in and was working in an area known as Kolfe.That is may be one of the reasons for restricting the international community from going out of the city of Addis Ababa without an approval letter from MOFA(Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

  6. If we are pretending as if this result is surprising or unexpected, it just shows that how naive we all are. Melese must be laughing at all of us.

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