Meles
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ACE The International · · · · · These “Ethical An election administration · · · Ethical Principle 2 At times, a country may choose · · · · · · · · · · · Election administrations should Ethical Principle 3 · · · In addition, election
Ethical Principle 4 –
Ethical Principle 5 · · · TN The National |
We will next examine the Prime Minister’s claim that Electoral
Proclamation 111/1995 is of international standard.
Part II.
P.M. Meles’s claim that Electoral Law 111/1995 is of international
standard
In that same annual report to the Ethiopian Parliament on
July 9, 2004, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had also noted, again
usurping the powers of the Legislative branch, that the request of the
political opposition to revise Electoral Proclamation 111/1995 was also
unacceptable to his Government since, using the English translation of his
speech from the website of Walta,
he claimed: (i) “ The Electoral Law is consistent with international
standards…”, and (ii) the
electoral law “… has been the basis of two elections carried out so far…”,
which, by itself, is no argument for any claim of virtue for the Law since the
law has been imposed over the last 10 years.
We shall first observe a few mportant elements of the international
standard for such laws, and then review only a few articles of Proclamation
111/1995 in the context of its being “… consistent with international
standards …”, and postpone a discussion of its performance to Part III below.
Is
Proclamation 111/1995 of
International Standard ?
First, we have to define what is meant by an electoral law
of international standard. Such a
definition is readily available in several publications, including those in
IFES’s website, in USAID’s Handbook of Democracy and Governance
Program Indicators, in IIDEA and in ACE websites.
Since they are all essentially the same, we shall quote only
those of ACE and USAID as follows:
ACE
recommends the inclusion of the following 4 elements as a core for such
regulations:
- elements of the basic
right to active and passive universal suffrage, namely, an accurate
determination of who may vote and be elected, how one becomes a voter and
how one becomes a candidate
- conditions of the
elections, which include a specific definition of the constituency, the
electoral formula or principle and the form of expression of the vote
- organizational,
procedural and territorial criteria: how and where voting takes place
- control mechanisms of
the different procedural phases
ACE further
emphasizes that these broad requirements for the formulation of a democratic
electoral law “…must
provide a full range of procedural guarantees that will make the constitutional
principles of the right to active and passive suffrage fully effective… The
most basic premise is not to achieve perfect procedural mechanisms, but for a
consensus to exist among all the relevant political forces on their honesty, so
that inevitable imperfections (e.g., on the electoral roll) would be assumed as
politically neutral and as such, acknowledged by all as being unable to
compromise the results of an election.
Typical Contents setting out from these two basic elements,
then, the following comprise the typical contents of an electoral law:
- definition of the
sphere of the regulations (which elections are affected by them)
- regulations referring
to the electoral system (constituency, number of representatives, electoral
formula, etc.)
- dispositions relevant
to the right to active suffrage, definition and deprival of the right,
regulations for the exercise thereof, including registration on the
electoral roll
- dispositions on the
right to passive suffrage, including the determination of who is eligible
and who is ineligible, and the conditions for running as candidates
- regulations relevant
to electoral administration (appointments, dependence or independence,
procedures of operation, etc.)
- dispositions on the
electoral campaign
- voting procedure(s)
- vote counting
procedure(s) and announcement of those elected
- expenses and
electoral subsidies”.
On the other hand, in Part 2 of Section B, which is
on Elections and Political Processes,
in its Handbook of Democracy and
Governance Program Indicators, USAID, the international development
agency of the US government, describes Impartial Electoral Framework
in Section 2.2.1 as follows:
“ The
electoral framework refers to those constitutional provisions, laws,
regulations,
and
institutions which govern electoral processes.
Although not a sufficient condition,
an
impartial framework is a necessary
condition for free and fair elections and electoral
processes.
Impartiality can take a number of forms, but it will generally be
recognized by a
broad
acceptance of the framework.”.
Given such guidelines for an electoral legal framework of
international standard, we now examine a few articles of Electoral
Proclamation 111/1995 to see how they measure up against the
international standards of impartiality, transparency, inclusiveness and broad
acceptability by the principal stakeholders: competing political parties and the
general public.
Art. 22 deals with registration officers. It
does not specify who is actually responsible for registration.
It simply states that the Board shall designate them, thereby
avoiding transparency, but it is too important to be left at that.
There is no role the competing parties.
Art\. 23 provides for the appointment of observers
from competing political parties and NGOs, but no provision for international
observers. In practice, this provision has been grossly violated by NEB’s
appointment of “ Peoples’
Observers“, often largely illiterate, who have been invariably used as
tools by election officials (EPRDF) to serve as members of Grievance
Committees, monitoring committees, and to always certify that the
electoral process has been free and fair; they know very little about their
roles, and they sign whatever papers they are presented to certify that the
election has been free and fair.
Contrary to the provisions of this article, EPRDF has
arranged Marxist-style stage-managed community meetings to pick them up after an
invariably pre-arranged selection has been made for the purpose.
By so doing, the Board itself has willfully violated Art. 23 of
this proclamation and Art. 38 of the Constitution.
Art.30 deals
with voter’s identification which is not achieved, as further reflected in
Article 32 which specifies the contents of the voter’s identification card.
An old identification card or an Ethiopian passport which has expired is
regarded valid as a prerequisite for obtaining a voter’s card, and this is
inconsistent with the residence requirement in Art. 19.
Further, an old Ethiopian passport or even a new one is no more good
enough to identify Ethiopians since it has been generously given to non-Ethiopians
over the last 13 years.
In
practice, these cards have been distributed in 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2004
by polling stations without any count of how many have been originally
received at each polling station, how many have been used, and how many are left
unused. Hence, they have been given
out in a manner that may well have been designed to bring in all those who are
non-residents and those who may have had EPRDF
instructions to vote in two more polling stations.
Again, agents of competing political parties have had no role.
Art. 33 deals
with the closing of registration. It does not state who closes the registration,
how or who witnesses it. Competing
parties have, again, no role.
Art. 36 treats conditions for cancellation from the
voter’s register. It is vague on the procedures for cancellation of
registration. Under-age people and
military personnel, which are barred from political participation by Art. 87 of
the Constitution, and others are not mentioned for cancellation.
It also fails to take note of conditions imposed in Art. 19, Art. 20 and
Art. 46, among others.
Art. 38 prescribes a language criterion for
candidacy, and that violates Art. 38 of the Constitution since it discriminates
on the basis of language, and since it also violates the citizen’s right to make
a free choice without any imposition from the government or the ruling party.
If voter’s want to choose a candidate, irrespective of his ethnic
background, they should be free to
do so.
This article also discriminates between candidates in that
some have to satisfy a 5-year residence requirement, whereas political emigrants
and people who have been abroad for various unspecified reasons have no need to
satisfy this residence requirement. This may have been valid in the elections of 1995 and
earlier, but not 13 years after TPLF/EPRDF took over the reigns of government
and created a “stable and democratic state”.
This article is perhaps designed more for the leaders of
EPRDF who reside in Addis Ababa but make arrangements to be ” elected”
in Adwa, Axum, Endasillasie, Bahir Dar, etc… so that they do not satisfy the
residence requirement of 5 years. It
is now time that our EPRDF leaders face the facts and agree to the same
residence requirement for every candidate in the Land; it is senseless to allow
one group to have more rights than others while claiming to be a democratic
government that obeys the Constitution, just like the two land tenure systems ( one
in Tigray and the other in the rest of Ethiopia) under EPRDF.
Otherwise, Article 38 of the Constitution will continue to be violated.
This discriminatory provision also resides in Art. 19 which deals with
the residence requirements for voters.
Art. 41 deals with the number of candidates per
political party in a constituency, and it defines that to be only ONE,
and this is not true since up to 6 had been nominated by EPRDF itself in the
City Council elections in Addis Ababa in 2000.
The number of endorsements per resident is also equally contradictory.
Art. 42: deals with candidates’ symbols which have
been no less that 6 for an opposition party’s candidates in Addis Ababa in
2000. This chaos is dictated by
directives of the National Election Board;
this provision needs to be scraped. Each competing candidate from each
competing party should have only one party symbol throughout the Country,
and that will go a long way towards enhancing the effectiveness of the exercise
of democratic rights by our largely illiterate population.
The
symbols, the constituencies and their population sizes, and the number of
candidates in each constituency should be made public in an official
gazette so that the information will not be EPRDF monopoly as it has been in
1995, 2000, 2001 and 2004.
Art. 43 limits the number of candidates per
constituency to 12, and this lacks clarity, and it may also be an infringement
on constitutional rights when there are some 80 legally registered political
parties. It may also open an
opportunity for more fraud.
At. 46 defines
those that can be candidates while retaining their government jobs.
It discriminates between those who are political appointees and those
that are not, and it also discriminates between EPRDF members, who are the
political appointees and those from opposition parties, which invariably have no
political appointees. Political
appointees do not have to resign to be election candidates, but the rest have to
resign their posts. This is another
violation of Art. 38 of the Constitution.
Another discriminatory content in this article is that
whereas members of the civil service can be members of a political party, (i)
they cannot be leaders in their respective parties, and (ii) they cannot, during
an election campaign, campaign or write on behalf of their party candidate, or
support such a candidate in any way. This also violates Art. 38 of the Constitution since
political
appointees of EPRDF can do that without any such
constraints. Members of the Civil
Service, including political appointees, need to be equal before the
Constitution.
Art. 50 provides for equal access to all
Government-run public mass media to all competing political parties, but that is
done in accordance with the directives of the Ministry of Information,
one of the least progressive and the leading anti-private press agencies of the
EPRDF Government. This provision
has not been implemented in 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2004. Hence, this article should be replaced by a Mass Media
Commission, composed of representatives of all competing independent
political parties, to oversee the equitable use of the press, including public
mass media under the Ministry of Information.
Art. 51 deals with the obligations of government
institutions to provide equitable services to all competing parties, which looks
good on paper. However, in all past elections, government vehicles, conference
halls and public mass media have been the monopoly of the ruling party, and the
National Election Board, itself an organization of EPRDF, has not attempted to
implement this legal provision. This
is also one of many reasons why the Board has to go.
Art. 52: provides
for stopping any illegal activities during the election period.
This is a control/supervisory function which has had no effect in 1995,
2000, 2001 and 2004. The Board has failed, and the court system has also failed
so that it is time to establish an Independent Electoral Court
for the elections in 2005 to be appointed jointly by all independent
political parties, as was done in South Africa in 1993. An independent electoral court has also been successfully
used in Latin America ( Mexico, Argentina, etc…) , in addition to South
Africa.
The justification for this is the absence of an independent
judiciary since the one we have today is an appendage of EPRDF, as acknowledged
by Prime Minister Zenawi himself in 2001 (See Reporter, Amharic
Monthly; May 2001, Vol. 4, No. 36, p.23) in one of his policy papers by
admitting that there are judges at various levels that have been recruited
largely on account of their loyalty to EPRDF so that a judiciary so constituted
cannot, even according to him, ensure rule of law. Nevertheless, there is no independent judiciary right to this
day.
Art. 57 deals
with secrecy of balloting. This has
been absent in 1995 ( See DEU Report summary below), 2000, 2001 and 2004 ( See
EHRCO report review summary below). The
abuse has been so extensive that Article 38 of the Constitution was
repeatedly violated on this score. Past elections were a total charade !
Art. 60 deals
with the hours of voting, but this article has rarely been observed even within
Addis Ababa. This is a reflection
of the Board’s incompetence.
Art. 62 provides for security of polling stations.
In all past elections the only serious insecurity was due to intruding
EPRDF officials ( See DEU Report summary below for 1995;
EHRCO Report summary below for 2000, 2001 and 2004) who were
indistinguishable from election officials within the polling stations, and that
is understandable since election management officials, from the National
Election Board down to the polling station level, are also EPRDF officials.
This is also why an INDEPENDENT ELECTORAL COMMISSION needs to be
reconstituted to replace the current partisan National Election Board to
check such illegality.
Art. 64 deals with the way voting is effected using
the voter’s card to identify a voter. However,
the card is inadequate since it fails to fully identify the person as detailed
in Article 32. It has also been
ignored since voters have had to mark the ballot in front of election officials
or since they have had to go into the voting booth in groups ( See DEU Report
summary below for 1995; EHRCO
Report summary below for 2000, 2001 and 2004).
Art. 64 also provides for assistance to the disabled and to the
illiterate. However, since
independent observers and party agents are not involved, it opens
still another door for fraud by the ruling party since the disabled and the
illiterate are at the mercy of partisan election officials.
Art. 65 deals with vote counting at the polling
station. It says nothing about who
opens the box, who counts, who officially witnesses the counting, who seals the
ballot box after counting, what competing party agents can do here, who makes
the counts public at the polling station, whether competing parties get a copy
of the count results and what their exact content ought to be, the availability
of the voting results to the press, and the security of the transportation of
the ballot box to the office of the election district in a manner that has the
trust of all competing political parties and the public, and the conditions
under which all the activities are again repeated
in the office of the election district.
All operations around
vote counting have been kept intentionally vague, known only to EPRDF and
its election officials in 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2004.
Art. 66 deals with the public announcement of
election results, and the content of such a report. It leaves out any mention of the number of ballot papers that
have been distributed to polling stations, perhaps with the objective of
creating still more opportunities for further fraud. Such announcements need to be made at (i) the polling
station, (ii) the office of the election district (
wereda) and (iii) the national level, with paralleling contents.
The announcement of
the results should be postponed if there are challenges under review in an
electoral court by any competing party.
Chapter 4: Procedures
for Redressing Election Complaints
Art. 69-73 deal with the treatment of complaints
during registration, voting and vote counting. Though there is no mention of
complaints during the election campaign period here, it is covered in Art. 52.
Such complaints are first seen by those same partisan election officials,
then appeals go to the incompetent and partisan EPRDF courts and the entire
process takes weeks, if not years, so that the election is announced “free
and fair” by the partisan NEB before the complaints are ever
resolved.
This is why an impartial National Election Board (NEB)
is needed to manage the administrative function, an INDEPECDENT
ELECTORAL COURT to control illegality in election management operations and
to curb election violations of the ruling party which will then be forced to be
more legal since EPRDF will then realize that it can no more tell NEB or
the court what to do.
The quality of the courts of today are best described by the Prime
Minister himself ( See Reporter, Amharic Monthly, May 2001,
Vol. 4, No 26, p. 23), as reported above.
Proclamation
111/1995 violates
Article 102 which provides for an independent NEB.
This electoral proclamation starts out by violating Article
102 of the Constitution which requires the NEB to be independent:
Article 4 and Article
8 empower the Parliament, which is over 97% EPRDF, to appoint the members of
the NEB, the Chief Executive Officer of the Board and his Deputy.
Hence, the impartiality and independence criteria fro a democratic and
credible electoral management organization of international standard are
seriously compromised.
Furthermore, there is no limitation on the duration of
service of the members of the same partisan Board. They have been fixtures of the EPRDF over the last 9 years of
EPRDF rule, in spite of their repeated failures and poor performance in the
management of the elections of 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2004.
Proclamation
111/1995 also violates Article 38 and
related articles of the Constitution.
Finally, it is clear that Electoral Proclamation
111/1995 has
v
failed to give rise to an impartial election management body
v
provided for a Constituency demarcation procedure that is vague,
partisan, confused, inequitable and obsolete
v
failed to ensure universal suffrage since it excludes citizens by
giving them various labels
v
made inadequate provisions to ensure security during the entire
period of the elections
v
made inadequate provisions for the redress of complaints by
requiring the use of a partisan and hopelessly inefficient court system that
takes years to decide on simple civil cases
v
provided no meaningful role to competing political parties and
election observers in the entire electoral process
v
failed to make strong provisions to correct for the continued
inequitable use of government-owned mass media by the ruling party
v
failed to address electoral subsidies to the political opposition
while the ruling party continues to liberally use government resources
throughout the country.
v
missed on a number of essential provisions such as a Code of
Conduct and several others.
Hence, Proclamation 111/1995 has
to be totally scraped if democratic
elections are to be take place in 2005, and if peace and stability is to follow
in Ethiopia and in the Horn of Africa after the elections in 2005.
The Parliament and EPRDF have already received detailed alternative
proposals from opposition political parties.
Lastly, the Prime
Minister’s claim of the electoral law’s respectable performance will be
examined hereunder.
Using the reports of (a) a distinguished group of
western ambassadors on the national and regional elections of 1995, (b) Ethiopian
Human Rights Council on the elections in 2000, and 2004, and (c) All
Ethiopia Unity Party on the atrocities regularly committed by EPRDF
throughout Ethiopia in recent weeks as an update of the performance of NEB
after the regional elections in 2004, we shall establish that the Prime
Minister’s claims of good performance are again baseless.
Part III.
P.M. Meles’s claim on the performace of the NEB and
Proclamation 111/1995 over the last ten years
A.
The Elections of May 1995
The May 1995
Ethiopian national elections had such respectable international observers as the
Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists( ICJ ) which worked in
association with the American Association of the ICJ ( AAICJ), African American
Institute, and, of course, the Donors’
Election Unit (DEU).
OAU
had also sent observers to observe only on election day on May 7, 1995 after all
major opposition parties ( SEPDC,
OLF, AAPO, EDUP) had boycotted the
elections on account of the absence of a level playing field for all competing
parties. Only EPRDF was out there
to compete with itself on election day.
Hence, OAU’s final but ill-conceived verdict was that the elections of
May 7, 1995 were free and fair, and that was a serious miscarriage of
organizational responsibility.
The first two
groups of observers had clearly pronounced that the May 1995 elections were not
free and fair, and, as a result,
both were denied further entry to Ethiopia.
The essential message from all three groups is basically alike so that
only DEU’s report is reviewed hereunder.
What was DEU ?
According to DEU’s Report,
“The Donor Election Unit (DEU) was
established … to observe the electoral process leading up to the May 1995
national and regional elections. The
DEU was created by the Donor Group Sub-Committee on Elections, a groups that
consists of the embassies of Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden,
the united Kingdom and the United States.
It is chaired by the ambassador of the United Kingdom.”.
The Donors’
Election Unit (DEU) was, therefore,
organized by the Donors’ Group
Sub-Committee on Elections which
comprised H.E. Robin Christopher, the Ambassador of Great Britain as Chairman,
and H.E. Ambassador Irvin Hicks of the USA, H.E. Ambassador Jone Bos of
Netherlands, H.E. Ambassador Ann Wilkens of Sweden, H.E. Ambassador David
Stockwell of Canada, H.E Ambassador
M. Melani of Italy and H.E. Ambassador H. Winkelmann of Germany, which are seven
distinguished ambassadors to Ethiopia in all.
This distinguished group of ambassadors submitted a report that was
prepared by DEU to the Transitional Government of Ethiopia with a letter dated
May 31, 1995.
DEU’s Covering Letter
According to the letter, “The DEU began operating on March 1 and it organized nearly 50 missions to every region
of Ethiopia by the time of the election on May 7.”.
The letter went into some positive aspects of the election, and it then
added: “There
are, however, some areas of concern where action will be required if democratic
institutions are to take deeper root. These
are in particular:
- The
Need for Extensive Civic Education of the electorate, in particular, of
political and administrative officials and cadres at the local level, where
some behavior was not consistent with the democratic nature of the elections
and the climate of tolerance and pluralism it implies
- The
Need to guarantee access to the rural area for all political parties
- The
Need for adequate time to prepare for elections …”.
DEU’s Report
The Report had 7 Sections: General Political Climate, Rural versus Urban Differences,
Issues Relating to the Campaign, Administrative Issues, Voter Registration,
Voting and Vote Counting Procedures, and Final Observations.
The Report explained that “The DEU began operating on March 1 and it organized nearly 50 missions to every region
of Ethiopia by the time of the election on May 7….A number of countries ( the
United Kingdom, Finland, Italy, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Greece, Austria,
, and the European Union) brought in a limited number of observers from outside
Ethiopia, totaling approximately 28. In addition 50 Addis Ababa based donor embassy officials also
participated as observers… The Ethiopian Government objected to some
individuals proposed as observers on official government delegations from the
Netherlands and Canada due to their NGO backgrounds; as a result these two states chose not to send external
observer missions.”
1. General Political Climate
The Report noted that “ A number of legally registered but non-participating
parties faced political intimidation, arrest, and the closure of their offices
in the pre-election period. The Southern Ethiopian Peoples Democratic Coalition
had some members in jail on dubious charges in Jinka…and was refused
permission to open an office and hold a rally in Hosaina.
The All-Amhara People’s Organization had much of its leadership in jail
and most of its offices closed…DEU missions received numerous reports of
intimidation of the legally registered but non-participating Ethiopian
Democratic Unity Party (EDUP). … Several DEU missions received, investigated,
and judged credible reports that EDUP leaders have been imprisoned for political
reasons in Bahir Dar, Gonder, and Tigray… National and local election boards
usually refrained from intervening in cases of political harassment.
The Joint Forum for Political Parties did not develop into a strong
organization capable of monitoring or resolving conflicts between candidates and
government officials. Recourse to
the court system proved to be slow and inadequate leaving candidates with
grievances and few places to appeal for redress.”.
2. Rural versus Urban
Differences
The Report observed that “ In a real sense, two very distinct elections took
place. These differences were seen
in all aspects of the election, from basic civic education, the ability of
non-EPRDF candidates to be registered, their ability to campaign, the levels of
voter registration, the administration of polling places ( particularly
regarding secrecy of the ballot) and, to a degree, the results. … Urban areas
had far greater freedom for both non-EPRDF candidates and voters…. In
contrast, in the rural areas where 85 percent of Ethiopians live, the farmers’
associations were solidly under the control of EPRDF. The political power of many
urban areas was diluted because constituency boundaries generally included parts
of towns along with rural areas.”.
This was one of several EPRDF machinations to deny a level playing field
to the political opposition.
3. Issues
relating to the Campaign
The Report further added that “ In most regions we visited, the
EPRDF-affiliated party had large offices provided by the government and had
access to government vehicles and other material support.
The boundaries between party business and regional or local government
business often were vague or not recognized. Non-EPRDF parties occasionally had
similar offices. In general, however, they were assigned very small offices or
had to rent them privately. Most
towns did not have any non-EPRDF party offices.”.
Further the DEU report noted that “ The
presence of EPRDF officials in the Kebeles and farmers’ associations provided
EPRDF candidates with a further significant advantage.
Kebele and farmers’ association officials affiliated with the EPRDF
should have been clearly distinct from the election officials but these lines
often were blurred. …. A
large number of voters told DEU missions that they expected repercussions if
they did not follow the instructions of the kebele leaders to register and vote
for the EPRDF.”. Such
repercussions were expected in “ renting a government house from the kebele
or losing their allotment of fertilizer distributed by the farmers association.”
.
It was further
noted in the Report that “
Some independent and non-EPRDF candidates reported difficulties in calling or
addressing such kebele meetings.”.
4. Administrative
Issues
The Report also observed that “Several non-EPRDF candidates complained to DEU
missions that the election boards were insufficiently forceful in investigating
claims against government officials.”
Regarding the lack of clarity in articles in Election
Proclamation 111/1995, the
Report stated that “Areas
where there was confusion and inconsistent application of rules included the
issues of who must resign a government job…. The residence requirement for
candidates… and voters…and the restrictions on the use of government
vehicles …” which “…were
interpreted in a variety of ways. As noted below, there was a great deal of
variation in procedures on voting day”.
One such variation related to the reporting of spoiled
ballot papers. The Report noted
that “ In a number of stations officials seemed to try to
discern the voter’s intent and, if reasonably clear, counted the
ballot…;;…polling officials, particularly in rural areas, denied
… the ability to put up posters” to non-EPRDF candidates.
5. Voter
Registration
With rural Ethiopia and the entire election management
under the complete control of EPRDF cadres and officials, the reported voter
turnout was understandably large in the countryside.
In Gonder, the Report observed that “ there seemed to be a high number of voters listing
their age as 18, suggesting that some underage individuals may have
registered.”.
The Report further stated that “ Voters were rarely asked to show any identification
when registering in places observed by DEU”.
6. Voting
and Counting Procedures
The Report observed that “ Despite the high rates of
participation by registered voters in most areas, DEU missions observed little
voter enthusiasm.”. That is
to be expected when people are forced out to vote for the ruling party and the
ruling party alone.
It was also stated that “ Some observers noted that instructions to voters were
given by kebele officials rather than election board officials, raising concerns
about the non-partisan nature of the information… the
person who handed the ballot to the voters should have been an election board
official”.
The
Report also explained that “ In many polling stations, ”, stated
the Report, “the DEU observed, the secrecy of the ballot was not fully
ensured, particularly in the rural areas. The
place for marking the ballot was not always out of sight of other voters,
election officials, or even kebele officials.
In a number of rural areas voters marked their ballots on the same table
as the registration book or even were told directly by an official where to
place their mark. More than one
observer reported that in some rural polling stations ballots were marked in
public but placed in the ballot box in a screened-off area.”.
The Report noted that “ One DEU mission estimated
that over a broad area in several regions more than 80 percent of the closing
reports were incomplete or contained major mistakes. This lack of accountability provided opportunities for
manipulation and, in a significant number of rural polling stations, such
manipulations seemed evident…In Assosa ( Region 6), nine of the 32 polling
stations checked by a DEU mission found that one of the two competing parties
received 100 per cent of the votes, every one registered had voted, and no or
very few void ballots were recorded”.
7. Final
Observations
The Report concluded that “ The EPRDF was the only major political organization
that participated in the May 1995 election… Some smaller parties participated
in a limited number of constituencies…these parties sometimes faced
intimidation and restrictions on their ability to campaign, particularly in
rural areas….The treatment of legally registered but non-participating
parties, including arrests of some officials, closure of offices and
restrictions on travel, hindered political participation….May, but by no means
all, independent candidates either shared the EPRDF’s views on policy issues
or offered only vague alternative
programmes. Sometimes independents
also were harassed and thereby limited in their ability to reach voters.”.
It also added that “ The ability of candidates to register and campaign
and voters to vote secretly and without official interference was much higher in
the urban areas than the rural areas.”. The
reason is clear: EPRDF was in full
control of rural areas, and there was no further need for harassment during the
election period.
The
report finally concluded that “ The May 1995 Ethiopian elections had large
numbers of candidates, large numbers of voters, a generally effective
administration, and was conducted in a peaceful manner.
Elections, however, are about choice… the ability of the Ethiopian
people to use the ballot effectively to choose their leaders is still limited.
Until alternative political organizations participate, however, such
choices will remain restricted.”.
The DEU Report was fair;
EPRDF had no problem fielding a large number of candidates of all
descriptions, and voter turnout was high since 85% of Ethiopians were under
EPRDF mercy; the election
administration was inefficient, and for a nation that is used to thousands of
years of feudal rule, there was no problem accepting that form of “peace” in
1995.
However, rural and urban Ethiopia are different today.
Rural Ethiopia wants its land back, and it will not accept peace for
continued slavery and a feudal-style land tenure system where the farmer,
outside Tigray, has land and fertilizers only so long as she/he supports EPRDF,
but not otherwise; this is the dismal story in rural Ethiopia at this time, July
2004, when farmers who are members of All Ethiopia Unity Party (AEUP)
are promised priority for fertilizer service if they first cancel their
membership in AEUP; otherwise, they are threatened with the usual repressive
measures, and that is also how the Government handles the national problem of
Food Security today.
Indeed, the essential pre-conditions for peace and
stability in Ethiopia and in the Horn of
Africa are approaching a highly critical stage:
Either all
Ethiopians will exercise their political rights without any interference in
2005, or else an unfortunate showdown is inevitable in this peaceful and ancient
land between the Ethiopian people and EPRDF’s leaders.
A repeat of the election fiasco of 1995,
2000, 2001 and 2004 is totally unacceptable in 2005 to both rural and urban
Ethiopia !
B.
The Elections of 2000 and 2004
The Elections of 2000
An assessment of the performance of the National Election
Board and Election Proclamation 111/1995
also comes from the report of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO),
entitled “ The May 2000 General Election: A Report.”.
The report is based upon direct observation of the elections from
registration to voting day in 11 cities and towns which have included Ambo,
Dilla, Addis Ababa, Nazret, Awassa, Bahir Dar, Dire Dawa, Harer, Dessie, Hossana
and Jimma.
It is important to note that since EPRDF was competing with
itself in the Amhara and Oromo regions, there were very few human rights
violations in those two regions. The
strongest opposition to EPRDF was in SNNP, and that was where the most serious
violations of human rights took place.
A summary of violations reported ( p. 4 ) by EHRCO during
the registration period is as follows:
|
Type |
Number of Victims |
|
Arbitrary Gunshot Illegal Illegal Harassment/Threat Others |
2 2 158 5 7 8 |
|
Total |
182 |
An overview of NEB’s operational performance, in these
relatively more enlightened communities compared to rural Ethiopia, is giver
hereunder for 6 towns: Addis Ababa, Nazret, Awassa, Bahir Dar, Dessie and Dire
Dawa.
With regard to non-violent practices in Addis Ababa,
EHRCO’s observers noted:
q
Candidates of the ruling party continued to campaign after the
official end of campaigns
q
Only posters of the ruling party were allowed in the polling
stations
q
Election officials were the staff of the Kebele ( village)
administrations
q
Elections officials were quite often from one ethnic group
q
Under-age reporting was common
q
Many NEB observers were illiterate
q
After locks of ballots boxes were broken, the boxes remained
unsealed
q
Partisan observers handpicked by NEB did the tallying
q
The number of ballots received at polling stations was unknown
q
More votes were cast than the population of voting residents
q
Soldiers were bused in from Minilk’s Palace to vote and that
violated Art. 87 of the Constitution
In Nazret,
EHRCO’s observers again noted:
v
Vote counting was done the next day
v
Officials were partisan during voter education
v
Posters of members of the ruling party were posted even in ballot
rooms
v
Election officials were caught directing voters on who to vote for
v
Government and kebele (village) officials hang around the gate of
the polling station with no security control
In Awassa, observers of EHRCO found the election practice
even more partisan:
Ø
Candidates of the ruling party continued to campaign after the end
of the campaign period
Ø
Posters of EPRDF candidates were posted in polling stations, and
“ Vote for EPRDF” was also posted even in ballot rooms.
Ø
Partisan officials frequently gave suggestive directives on who to
vote for
Ø
People who had voted were allowed to continue to sit in the
ballot room
Ø
Officials of the ruling party came in and out and carried on
frequent arguments with election officials
Ø
The number of ballot papers received at polling stations was
unknown
Ø
TV was on at the polling station , and it was also another source
of disturbance
Ø
Posters of EPRDF candidates were posted in polling stations
Ø
Election officials harassed voters
Ø
Voters were made to enter the ballot room in groups so that voting
secrecy was non-existent
In Dessie, another town in Amhara Region, EHRCO’s team of
observers observed the following:
v
Election officials wore badges and caps of the ruling party
v
Candidates of the ruling party continued to campaign on the road
as voters walked to the polling station
v
Vote counting was postponed to the next day when EHRCO’s
observers were thrown out from observing the counting
In Dire Dawa,
v
Election officials were Kebele officials
v
Local members of the Ethiopian Air Force were bused in to vote,
against Article 87 of the Ethiopian Constitution which requires the armed forces
to be non-partisan
v
Candidates of the ruling party campaigned right up to Election Day
The picture has been similar in Dilla, Ambo, Harar, Hosana,
and Jimma: Partisanship of election officials was all over and balloting secrecy
was not observed.