Ethiopia's Meles set for easy re-election
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi appears
poised to begin a second decade in
power after leading a coup to topple the
previous government in 1991
23 May, 2010
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) – Ethiopians voted in legislative elections Sunday as Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, a key Western ally, appeared set to extend his 19-year rule over sub-Saharan Africa's second most populous nation.
The last polls in 2005 saw the opposition record its best ever showing but led to violence that killed 200 and triggered a government crackdown that left the regime's main challengers jailed, exiled or greatly weakened.
With the country's most charismatic opposition figure in prison and what rights groups have criticised as shrinking political freedom during the campaign, Meles seemed assured of being comfortably re-elected.
Polling stations started opening at 6:00 am (0300 GMT) for the vast Horn of Africa nation's 32 million registered voters to elect the 547-strong lower House of Representatives, as well as regional councillors who in turn will pick the upper chamber of parliament.
The ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has promised that the country's fourth multi-party legislative polls would be free and fair.
Voters turned out in large numbers in Ambo, one of the main towns in the southern region of Oromiya, an opposition bastion that witnessed most of the pre-electoral disturbances.
One candidate from the main opposition coalition, Medrek ("forum" in Amharic), complained that observers from his party were denied access to 14 polling stations in Ambo for several hours.
"We suspect there might have been foul play. Who knows what happened between 6:00 and 8:30?," Worku Feyira told AFP there.
An electoral board official downplayed the incident and said the misunderstanding was quickly solved.
Meles cast his ballot in his native town in the northern region of Tigray, where he faces unprecedented opposition from some former comrades-in-arms who are disenchanted with what they say is an increasingly dictatorial rule.
"We weren't going the way we were supposed to go in terms of democratic transformation. The country is now led by a one-man, one-party regime," Awalom Woldu, a former ambassador to Eritrea, told AFP.
Human Rights Watch has charged that Meles has taken tough measures to avoid a repeat of the "mistakes" that nearly cost him victory in 2005.
"The Ethiopian government is waging a coordinated and sustained attack on political opponents, journalists, and rights activists ahead of the May 2010 elections," the watchdog said in the run-up to the polls.
Birtukan Mideksa, the 36-year-old woman who emerged from the 2005 electoral chaos as Ethiopia's most inspirational opposition figure, is serving a life sentence in jail.
She has often been dubbed "the Ethiopian Aung San Suu Kyi", in reference to Myanmar's detained pro-democracy activist.
Observers say that the opposition, despite joining forces under the Medrek umbrella, remains weak and divided and has not recovered from the repression that followed the 2005 post-electoral unrest.
Despite his poor rights record, Meles is steering ambitious development programmes and rapid economic growth that earn him solid support at home and abroad.
Foreign criticism of the regime's authoritarianism has been all the more muted as Meles -- whose country borders Eritrea and Somalia -- remains a key US and Western ally in the fight against Islamic extremism.
"It's a great thing if there are several opposition parties, but when it comes to the long-term stability of the country and the region, Meles is still your best bet," one Addis-based diplomat said.
The European Union has deployed around 160 observers and the African Union has sent another 60 to monitor the election.
