Politics of Ethiopia - Current Politics

Current Politics

Since 1991, Ethiopia has established warm relations with the United States and western Europe and has sought substantial economic aid from Western countries and the World Bank. In 2004, the government began a drive to move more than two million people away from the arid highlands of the east, proposing that these resettlements would reduce food shortages.

Ethiopia held another general election in May 2005, which drew a record number of voters, with 90% of the electorate turning out to cast their vote. While the European Union election observer team of Ana Maria Gomes deemed the elections to have fallen short of international standards for fair and free elections, other teams drew totally different conclusions. The African Union report on September 14 commended "the Ethiopian people's display of genuine commitment to democratic ideals", and on September 15 the US Carter Center concluded that "the majority of the constituency results based on the May 15 polling and tabulation are credible and reflect competitive conditions". However, it was noted that foreign election observers (including Gomes) were not given the authority and/or documentations in order to travel and monitor rural areas of the country. Even worse, these delays occurred a couple of days before the election day and some have indicated the governments role in these delays, but couldn't provide substantial proof for their accusations. Still, the US Department of State said on September 16, "these elections stand out as a milestone in creating a new, more competitive multi-party political system in one of Africa's largest and most important countries." Even the EU preliminary statement of 2005 said that "...the polling processes were generally positive. The overall assessment of the process has been rated as good in 64% of the cases, and very good in 24%."

The opposition complained that the ruling EPRDF engaged in widespread vote rigging and intimidation, alleging fraud in 299 constituencies. The ruling party complained that the main opposition party CUD's AEUP sub party had engaged in intimidation. All allegations were investigated by the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia in cooperation with election monitors, a process which delayed the release of the final results. In June 2005, with the results of the election still unclear, a group of opposition supporters protested these alleged discrepancies despite a one month ban on protests imposed by the government. The government said that if there are no protests for one month, it would ease the high political tension in Ethiopia. Street protests broke out again later in the year when the CUD opposition called for a general strike and boycotted the new Parliament, refusing to accept the results of the election. The police forces once again attempted to contain the protests and this time forty-two people were killed in Addis Ababa, including seven policemen, and another of whom later died because of fatal injuries caused by a hand grenade detonation. Thousands were arrested, and were taken to various detention centers across the country. On 14 November, the Ethiopian Parliament passed a resolution to establish a neutral commission to investigate the incidents of June 8 and November 1 and 2. On September 5, 2005, the National Elections Board of Ethiopia released the final election results in which confirmed that the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front retained its control of the government, but showed that opposition parties had increased their share of parliamentary seats, from 12 to 176. The Coalition for Unity and Democracy won all but one of the seats in Addis Ababa, both for the Parliament and the City Council. Now half of CUD, including Medhin have joined the parliament.

By February 2006, hundreds remained in custody, facing trial in March. About 119 people are currently facing trial, including journalists for defamation and opposition party leaders for treason. Human rights organisations have raised concerns over the well-being of some of these prisoners. However 8,000 prisoners have already been freed. Concerns about the implications of these trials for the freedom of the press have also been raised.