Statement by National Security Council Spokesman Mike Hammer on Ethiopian Elections
We acknowledge the conclusion of Ethiopia’s parliamentary elections on May 23, 2010. We commend the people of Ethiopia for their civic participation and note that the voting proceeded peacefully.
We are concerned that international observers found that the elections fell short of international commitments. We are disappointed that U.S. Embassy officials were denied accreditation and the opportunity to travel outside of the capital on Election Day to observe the voting. The limitation of independent observation and the harassment of independent media representatives are deeply troubling.
An environment conducive to free and fair elections was not in place even before Election Day. In recent years, the Ethiopian government has taken steps to restrict political space for the opposition through intimidation and harassment, tighten its control over civil society, and curtail the activities of independent media. We are concerned that these actions have restricted freedom of expression and association and are inconsistent with the Ethiopian government’s human rights obligations.
As voting concludes and the results are announced, we call on all parties to reject violence. We await the final assessments of the electoral process from independent observers, and encourage the government to address in good faith and impartially any concerns and disputes that are raised.
Ethiopia and the United States have a multifaceted relationship and share a number of important interests. We urge the Ethiopian government to ensure that its citizens are able to enjoy their fundamental rights. We will work diligently with Ethiopia to ensure that strengthened democratic institutions and open political dialogue become a reality for the Ethiopian people.
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Prime Minister Ethiopia’s ruling junta leader Meles Zenawi urged the international community on Tuesday to respect his landslide election win vote stealing and said foreign forces could not overturn the outcome and blood should not be shed.
Tens of thousands of ruling party supporters streamed into a square in Ethiopia’s capital to celebrate a peaceful election win for Zenawi and to reject opposition and rights groups’ accusations of vote-rigging.
The government of this key Washington ally in the region has warned that any politicians who try to spark post-election violence will be held responsible. Opposition leaders were jailed en masse after bloody chaos followed Meles’ 2005 victory.
“The people’s vote will not be overturned by foreign forces,” said Meles, standing behind a transparent bullet-proof screen at Meskel Square and wearing a leather jacket and baseball cap.
“Some of our foreign friends have disappointed us but that’s in the past. We urge them now to give recognition to the people’s vote. The politics of hate is out. Not one life should be lost in post-election riots,” he said.
Waving Ethiopian flags, wearing ruling party T-shirts and baseball caps, and holding photographs of Meles aloft, Meles supporters sang in central Addis Ababa: “Respect out vote, respect our decision, respect our choice.”
Placards in the national colors of green, yellow and red were handed out as people massed in Meskel Square to praise the landslide victory by the former bush guerrilla leader, with many written in English as well as the Amharic language.
The posters in English said: “Stop second guessing us!,” “Respect our sovereign voice,” “Our votes are not for sale” and “We choose our leader, no one else.”
Results released by Ethiopia’s electoral board on Monday, showed that the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and allies won an overwhelming number of votes in nine out of 11 regions and cities to declare so far.
The EPRDF crushed the eight-party opposition coalition known as Medrek in Oromia, the country’s most populous region and traditionally a stronghold for opponents.
The final official results are due on June 21.
Meles told Reuters in an interview on Sunday his party would win as it had presided over seven years of double-digit growth and had begun to reform the political and judicial landscape in this growing destination for foreign direct investment.
While nearly 10 percent of the population relied on emergency food aid last year, the government has invested heavily in infrastructure and Meles now wants to step up power production, improve telecommunications and develop industry.
RIGHTS GROUP
Some opposition leaders began complaining the election was flawed before polling booths closed, saying the EPRDF had routinely intimidated and harassed critics in the days and months ahead of the election.
European Union election observers said on Sunday the poll was peaceful and calm, albeit with some claims of irregularities that needed to be checked. They are due to give a preliminary verdict on Tuesday morning.
Analysts said if the poll were given a clean bill of health by EU observers there would be little momentum for critics to mount a convincing challenge.
If the EU said the poll was flawed, however, it might embolden the opposition to challenge the result and take to the streets in protest as they did in 2005.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Monday that observers should condemn voter intimidation, drawing a sharp response from the government which said the group was an instrument of those wanting to interfere in independent states.
Water cannon trucks were parked either side of Meskel Square and Federal Police searched people as they arrived. All roads leading into the square were closed.
Ethiopians say Meskel Square is where all roads meet in Addis Ababa and it has been the scene of historic moments in the Horn of Africa country’s past.
It was where dictator Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam smashed a red vial to signal the start of the “Red Terror” purges of his opponents. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed before he fled the country in 1991.
It was also where the opposition coalition fighting the 2005 election staged a mass rally.
The 2005 poll descended into riots that killed 193 protesters and seven policemen when a different opposition coalition said it was cheated of victory after a campaign which captured the imagination of many Ethiopians.
(Writing by David Clarke; Editing by Peter Millership)
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — Shortly after dawn Ethiopia’s capital was filled with the sound of loud hailers, the horns of flatbed lorries packed with people and the distorted blast of sound systems playing music.
Roads in Addis Ababa on Tuesday were blocked by paramilitary police in pale blue combat uniforms. A helicopter with a surveillance camera zoomed in on the crowded streets below.
The ruling party had planned it this way well in advance – the heart of Addis to be taken over for celebrations. Tens of thousands of people awaiting the message from one time guerilla fighter turned Africa statesman, father of three, Meles Zenawi.
Twelve hours earlier a posse of media had waited patiently outside a single storey building the size of a school classroom – the place where the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) was to make its pronouncement on provisional results.
‘Tell us who won!’
It turned out to be a haphazard affair. First Merga Bekana, the board chairman, struggled with spreadsheets beamed onto a rough plaster wall from a projector.
As he decided to abandon the presentation and send a messenger to get a printout of the provisional results, an American reporter barked: “Just tell us who won!”
Meskel Square was a hive of activity. With security forces all around this historic square in darkness, construction work was going on to assemble a dais for the victory celebration – and a position where Meles, the incumbent prime minister, could address his supporters from behind a bullet proof screen.
In the heated atmosphere of the results room, a long list of numbers was finally read out by Bekana. At first he appeared reluctant to announce a provisional winner and then came the words: “Definitely the EPRDF [the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front] has won. At this point definitely.”
And it was a landslide. The EPRDF had won by a larger margin than many analysts had expected. Their biggest challengers – Medrek, a forum of eight parties – had been decimated.
In advance of Sunday’s poll and during the voting, the opposition had been complaining of ballot stuffing, intimidation, harassment and the blocking of their observers in some of the 43,000 polling stations.
But on this night they were silent. And the next morning it was obvious they were letting the ruling party’s choreographed plans roll out.
They were waiting to hear what foreign observers had to say.
EU election monitors, in two floors of the Addis Hilton Hotel, were busily preparing for its news conference.
Expulsion threat
Draft copies of their findings had somehow found their way to Zenawi’s office.
I understand from sources that Thijs Berman, the EU chief observer, had been summoned by Zenawi on Monday for a serious dressing down – even a threat of expelling the 170-strong mission from the country.
And so, when on early Tuesday morning Zenawi spoke above the cacophony of his supporters’ wailing and cheering in Medrek Square, these words came in the Amharic language: “The people’s vote will not be overturned by foreign forces.
“Some of our foreign friends have disappointed us but that’s in the past.
“We urge them now to give recognition to the people’s vote. The politics of hate is out. Not one life should be lost in post-election riots.”
EU complaints
What was the opposition position on that statement?
Still no official word as the assembled throng of ruling party supporters became more challenging towards foreign faces. Some of them turned on foreign national journalists, like myself, chanting: “Tell the truth, fair reporting”.
Less than two hours later Berman addressed his large media audience.
He said the polling had been generally calm and peaceful, and organised in a competent and professional manner. However, in the political atmosphere during the weeks running up to the elections, his observers noted apprehension and insecurity as the number of complaints from the opposition increased.
Then he got to the point: “The title of our preliminary report is high turnout on election day but marred by narrowing political space and an uneven playing field.
“The EU observed the use of state resources for the campaign.
“Insufficient measures were taken to increase the level of trust of some political parties in the NEBE institution, especially at the local level.”
A few hours after his news conference came another EU statement, this time from Brussels.
Catherine Ashton, the EU foregn policy chief, said: “I welcome the peaceful conduct of the elections and I congratulate the Ethiopian voters for showing their commitment to this process with a high turnout.
“The legislative elections in Ethiopia were an important moment in the democratic process in the country,.”
Ashton further said the EU “stands ready to work with Ethiopia to further deepen our relations with the government and the peoples”.
Court consideration
So what should most Ethiopians, and particularly the opposition parties, make of this? Opposition leaders are still considering their next move.
Street protests are ruled out after the deaths of 193 demonstrators and seven policemen following the disputed 2005 election.
Back then the opposition was much stronger. Now the only realistic option is for them to look to the civil courts.
Medrek has an open hand as its campaign symbol, seen as a stop sign for Meles rule.
The EPRDF has a worker bee as its symbol.
The bee has stung the hand convincingly.
But how will this play out with a new government with a massively increased majority?
Ethiopia is a country with an estimated population of more than 80 million people and a massive need to help the vast majority of its people who live on less than $2 a day.
Meles has an answer – more foreign support for aid programmes while he works on the private sector.
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.
The Meles crime family, also known as the Adwa Mafia, claims that it has scored 100% victory in Tigray region by winning all the 38 parliamentary seats. Former comrades of Meles Zenawi — Seye Abraha, Gebru Asrat, and Aregash Adane — who competed for seats in Tigray representing Medrek have been heard saying that their election observers were chased away by Woyanne gunmen. In other regions, Prof. Merera Gudina, Ato Lidetu Ayalew, and all the other well-known opposition figures will have no sit to warm any more in the new rubber stamp parliament.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Woyanne-controlled media in Ethiopia has started to unleash a verbal salvo against the chief of European Union election monitoring team, Mr Thijs Berman, today after he told reporters at a press conference that Sunday’s election was not fair. WIC, one of the Woyanne propaganda outlets, compared Mr Berman with Ms. Ana Gomes, who was the head of EU’s election observers mission during the 2005 elections in Ethiopia. Read below a statement by the ruling junta that is posted on WIC today.
Addis Ababa (WIC) – The EU election observers’ mission in Ethiopia has failed to properly address its observation and failed to answer most of the questions posed by journalists in a press conference it held at Hilton Hotel today, May 25, 2010.
In his May 23, 2010 press conference, the Chief observer Thijs Berman reported that the irregularities it observed were technical errors insignificant to go into details but in this conference he along his team came back with a contradictory report.
Thijs said that there is lack of a level field for all contesting parties that contradict to his previous report and the reports of other observers. The Public, Civic and AU observers witnessed that the election was free, fair and democratic in any standard.
The Ethiopian people expected that EU observers could witness what they see with their eyes but they rather reported in line with their agendas to challenge the peace, stability and development of the country, according to some analysts.
The press conference was held just after the huge rally has ended. The people of Ethiopia made a rally throughout the country and warned HRW and other groups to leave the politics to them and rather help their development.
The crowed was saying: Respect our votes, Stop intimidation! Leave the politics to us! Witness what you really see and observe! However, the European Union election observing mission failed to read the interest and feeling of the Ethiopian people and continued reporting unbalanced and inaccurate reports. Ana Gomez came to Ethiopia in the 2005 national election and put heads of many Ethiopians into water due to her inaccurate and biased report, some residents of Addis who we talked to said, adding that the EU election observer mission was responsible for the deaths of people due to the conflict in 2005 election.
According to the residents both Ana Gomez and Thijs have similar agenda.
Five years later Thijs Berman, a Netherlands, came to observe election 2010 but misrepresent the situation on the ground that the journalists have challenged him for his contradictory and inaccurate report as they themselves have been following the election.
It was know that Ethiopia closed its consular office in the Netherlands as that country has consistently showing bias to oppositions and has little interest to peace and stability in the country, the residents said, adding that leaders of opposition parties were gathered in the Embassy of the Netherlands and discussed whether to accept the results of election 2010 or not.
THE WHITE HOUSE