Ethiopia declares election success

With Nigeria’s ruling party losing power and Ghana’s opposition also dreaming of dethroning the incumbents, in eastern Africa, long-time ruling parties are holding on firmly. 

Ethiopia’s government declared Sunday’s parliamentary elections a success with more than 90% of the electorate casting their ballots, as opposition politicians said their supporters were harassed and intimidated.

“The turnout was huge,” Communications Minister, Redwan Hussein said in a phone interview on Monday from the capital, Addis Ababa. “The process was calm and very peaceful.”

Almost 37 million people were registered to vote for lawmakers in the Horn of Africa nation’s 547-seat parliament. The ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) won all but one seat in the legislature in the last vote in 2010 and a majority in the latest election is a “foregone conclusion,” said Dereje Feyissa Dori, Africa research director at the International Law and Policy Institute in Norway.

Opposition election observers were harassed and voters intimidated in Ethiopia’s central Oromia region, said Merera Gudina, a leader from the Medrek coalition, the ruling party’s main challenger. “Much of it is a robbery,” he said in an interview in Ambo, 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of Addis Ababa.

There were only isolated problems, including a Medrek observer getting injured in the West Shewa Zone of Oromia, said Redwan. “There may been some hiccups, but if you look at the country situation overall there is no pattern,” he said.

The electoral board may announce preliminary results on Monday, Arkebe Oqubay, a special adviser to the prime minister, said by mobile-phone text message.