http://www.voanews.com/content/ethiopia-election-met-with-silence-from-ordinary-voters/2786753.html
Ethiopia Election Met With Silence From Ordinary Voters
Anita Powell
May 23, 2015 7:45 AM
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA/JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA—
Ethiopia will hold a major election Sunday, but critics of the
longtime ruling party say systematic repression has made this vote a
nonevent. Outside of the country, Ethiopians who say they are
political refugees have even harsher words for the government.
On the streets of Ethiopia’s capital, it’s hard to ignore that an
election is coming. But banners and blaring songs aside, this is an
oddly quiet election in a nation of some 90 million people.
The ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front is
virtually guaranteed victory. In the last election in 2010, opposition
parties won only a single seat in parliament.
Inside Ethiopia, very few ordinary voters are willing to speak about
politics, which seems to support rights groups' claims that Ethiopia,
in the words of Human Rights Watch, “has created a bleak landscape for
free expression.”
A spokesman for the EPRDF denies this.
"Most of the time, oppositions raised claims, complaints, and then
after we established the complaint committee when it come to the
result most of them will be false allegations. But some, very few, may
be happened in reality," said Desta Tesfaw, head of public and foreign
relations for EPRDF.
However, the Blue Party, Ethiopia’s newest opposition party, said it
has faced harassment, arrests and an unfair playing field.
“Oppositions are not getting a fair proportion of time and location,
financing, things like that. Not only that, there are tremendous
repression, we have about 50 people arrested only in Addis, about 50,"
said Yonatan Tesfaye, Blue Party spokesman.
In South Africa, Ethiopian immigrants said they are able to voice the
thoughts they could not share at home. Many said they fled
persecution from the ruling EPRDF.
“If you don’t follow them and if you don’t join them and if you don’t
do what they need, you can’t do what you need. And you need to follow
them, each and every thing they are telling you, because there is no
democra(cy) at all in our country,” Ethiopian immigrant Abdurahim
Jemal Araya said.
In Addis Ababa, VOA News repeatedly asked gathered crowds if anyone
would share their thoughts on the election, either in English or in
Amharic. No one volunteered.
Received on Sat May 23 2015 - 22:22:19 EDT