From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Wed May 19 2010 - 09:46:04 EDT
http://www.english.rfi.fr/africa/20100519-elections
Ethiopia - Ana Gomes interview - Article published the Wednesday 19 May
2010 - Latest update : Wednesday 19 May 2010
No hope for Ethiopian elections, MEP tells RFI
A European Union team of election observers has arrived in Ethiopia to
monitor the elections which are scheduled for this weekend, as a former
election monitor in the country tells RFI there is no point even trying to
monitor the polls and that those who do will face pressure from Ethiopia and
the European Union to write a favourable report.
The 170-member Election Observation Mission is the largest international
observation mission. It says it is neutral and independent.
Other foreign observers, including the Carter Centre, have refused the
Ethiopian invitation to send election monitors to Addis Ababa.
Ana Gomes, a European Parliament member who headed the European team that
monitored the 2005 Ethiopian elections, says she doesn't expect the upcoming
elections to be democratic.
“I have tried to discourage the European Commission and Council from sending
a mission to Ethiopia because the conditions are not there for a genuine
election, knowing what happened in 2005 and since then in terms of the
repression of the regime,” she said.
She also said Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and European Union institutions
tried to pressure her into writing a favourable report five years ago.
“Some member states have been responsible for giving some international
respectability to the regime of Meles Zenawi, which doesn’t deserve it
because of the oppression. It’s a totalitarian regime.”
She said France, Britain and Germany had major interests in the products
they sell to the regime and added that the industry of aid is not much
better.
“It gives no benefit to the people of Ethiopia because it’s run by a regime
that absolutely doesn’t provide development,” said Gomes.
Meles has been prime minister for 19 years. His Ethiopian People's
Revolutionary Democratic Front has run Ethiopia since ousting the communist
regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991.
The other parties in competition on 23 May are a coalition of eight main
parties called Medrek, which is the Ethiopian Federal Democratic Forum, the
All Ethiopian Unity Organisation and the Ethiopian Democratic Party.
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