Ethiopia’s ruling coalition and allied political parties have won a majority in the country’s 547-seat Parliament, according to provisional results, the National Electoral Board said.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s coalition won 269 seats, while four small independent parties affiliated with the ruling party won 14 seats in provisional results released on Saturday from the May 15 vote, said Getahun Amogne, a spokesperson for the National Electoral Board. Twenty seats are filled by appointment by the ruling party.
Final results are to be released on June 8, but Getahun said on Friday that they may be delayed because of hundreds of complaints and allegations of fraud filed by the candidates.
Electoral officials have so far tallied the vote counts for 453 seats, and more results were expected on Sunday. The provisional results indicate that Meles’s Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front has already secured 269 seats, meaning it needs five more to win another five-year term without having to rely on allied parties.
Opposition parties have made huge gains from the 12 seats they hold in the current parliament, so far taking 171 seats, Getahun said.
The provisional results are based on vote counting that took place at the about 34 000 polling stations in the country. The final results will be released by the board after they investigate any complaints made about the vote counting.
”We may know the provisional winner by Sunday, but we have many complaints to investigate,” Getahun said.
The main opposition party has lodged complaints in 139 of 527 constituencies, while the ruling party has raised concerns over irregularities in more than 50 seats. Political parties have until June 3 to provide evidence of fraud or their complaints will be dismissed.
New elections have already been scheduled for 16 of the country’s 34 000 polling stations because of irregularities.
The European Union said on Wednesday that delays in releasing the results raised the prospect of fraud.
In a statement, EU observers said the trickle of results, competing claims of victory by the government and the opposition and the denial of access to the state-run media for government opponents were threatening the electoral process.
Civil wars wracked the ethnically fractured country in the 1980s, and famine took as many as one million lives. The current ruling group overthrew a brutal Marxist junta in 1991.
The May campaign and voting was lauded as the most open in Ethiopia’s history, but questions about the count quickly surfaced. — Sapa-AP