By Abraham Fisseha, Matthew Lee
Agence France-Presse
ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopians prepared Saturday to go to the polls in hotly contested weekend elections as the opposition and a human rights watchdog renewed allegations of ongoing government harassment.
On the eve of Sunday’s vote, just the third since the ouster of Ethiopia’s communist “Derg” regime, the capital was calm but security was tight as heavily armed special forces and police patrolled the streets.
Although there were no fears of widespread violence, observers said there was potential for sporadic skirmishes and the opposition rejected a rosy assessement of the campaign from US president Jimmy Carter.
Despite official assurances that the poll will meet international standards, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO) and the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) said political arrests and intimidation were continuing.
“Even on the eve of the voting, our party observers are being arrested and denied access,” said Beyene Petros, the vice chairman of the UEDF which has refused to sign a polling day non-violence pact with the ruling party.
He told AFP that the group, which represents 14 parties, would not join the pact because the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) had only signed it as a party and not as the government.
“We have signed several documents before with the EPRDF as a party but all the intimidation and harrassment is coming from government officials, therefore there is no value in signing with the EPRDF as a party,” he said.
Ethiopia’s second main opposition umbrella organization, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), had also initially balked at the agreement but under pressure from international donors finally signed on Saturday.
At the same time, Andargachew Tesfaye, the chief of the human rights council, told reporters that his group was being hindered from deploying 1,644 poll monitors by election authorities in violation of a court order.
He said the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia was not complying with the court decision which overturned an earlier ban by the panel on most local observers.
“This illegal measure taken by the board, whose pretexts are inexhaustible, is unacceptable,” he told a news conference.
The council “has now come to the conclusion that the board denied it permission because there is a secret it wants to hide from the public,” Andargachew said.
He also dismissed Carter’s glowing evaluation of the state of Ethiopian democracy.
“We disagree with the report attributed to former president Carter that the electoral process has been peaceful,” he said.
On Friday, Carter, the most high profile of more than 300 foreigners invited to observe the election, said Ethiopia’s democratic progress since the ouster of a Soviet-backed dictatorship in 1991 had been “extraordinary.”
He also said that contrary to opposition claims and the concerns of some other observers there was no pattern of intimidation or inteference in the election campaign by electoral authorities, the ruling party or the government.
Beyene of the UEDF said his group and the CUD had laid out specific complaints to Carter in a meeting shortly after the ex-US leader made his remarks and hoped he would modify his opinion.
“He agreed to look at our concerns and he also agreed to look at our reports of violations which can be verified,” Beyene said.
Some 26 million of Ethiopia’s 70 million poverty stricken inhabitants are registered to cast ballots for candidates in eight of nine state legislatures and 524 of the 547 parliamentary seats on Sunday.
The poll is Ethiopia’s third since Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s EPRDF came to power 14 years ago, its second since the advent of multi-party politics and the first under international scrutiny.
His party, which has a lock on at least 100 uncontested parliamentary seats, is heavily favored to win despite .
In an interview with AFP on Friday, Meles allowed that there had been some violations of the country’s electoral code but said they would not tarnish what he called an unprecedented fair and open process.