Ethiopian authorities said on Wednesday they take ”very seriously” European Union concerns about virulent language being used by rival parties in the campaign for the country’s weekend general elections.
The National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) said the concerns expressed by EU election observers in a letter last week will be addressed, but stressed that they did not single out the ruling party for criticism.
”It is not only directly aimed at the government, it also blames the opposition,” NEBE chief Kemal Bedri said, referring to the May 4 letter sent by Ana Gomez, the head of the EU’s election observation team in Ethiopia.
”Both are guilty of using language and images that are not appropriate, so they told us it is better to tone it down,” he told reporters.
”Coming from the EU, we take it very seriously,” Bedri said at a news conference.
In her letter, Gomez raised a number of concerns about the conduct of the campaign for Sunday’s elections, notably government accusations that the opposition is promoting ethnic hatred that could flare into violence similar to what Rwanda saw in its 1994 genocide.
The EU has deployed about 160 observers throughout Ethiopia for the election and in an interview with news agency AFP on Monday, Gomez said her team has also reported incidents of harassment and intimidation, including physical assaults, against opposition candidates and supporters.
She added that she had asked the NEBE to take steps to rectify the situation.
At the news conference, Bedri said measures will be put in place to deal with the EU concerns, but appealed for patience from the international community, noting that Sunday’s vote will only be Ethiopia’s third since the ouster of a Soviet-backed dictatorship in 1991.
”This is a learning process, it is the first time that there is this kind of heated campaign,” he said. ”We don’t think this is going to be our last election, we have more elections to come and we’ll build on the lessons we learn from this one.” — Sapa-AFP