Ethiopia’s ruling party has won a majority of parliamentary seats in May 15 parliamentary polls with preliminary results in from 85% of the country’s 547 constituencies, electoral updates released on Monday showed.
According to the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (Nebe), the results from the 463 constituencies gave the ruling Ethiopia’s People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) 274 seats, a one-seat majority in the national assembly, with 78 seats still to be declared.
In addition, parties allied to the EPRDF, which is led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, have so far won another 15 seats.
The country’s opposition groups, which held only 12 seats in Parliament before the election, were credited with 174 seats.
Ethiopian Information Minister Berekat Simon said the ruling party’s victory and more opposition seats showed growing democracy in the impoverished Horn of Africa nation of about 70-million people.
”We are very happy to see that the results of the Nebe have confirmed our victory in Parliament,” said Berekat, who is also the head of EPRDF campaign team.
”The increasing number of seats the opposition has got in Parliament shows that democracy has improved in Ethiopia,” he added.
”Taken the mandate we received from the people, we will form the government at the federal level and play the role of a loyal opposition in Addis Ababa,” the minister added.
A western diplomat here also said the opposition’s increased presence in the federal Parliament was a remarkable pointer that Ethiopia is heading in the right direction.
”Nobody expected it, neither the government nor the opposition itself,” said the diplomat, who asked not to be named.
”For the first time, the opposition will play a role in Parliament [and] that is its next challenge,” the diplomat said.
The opposition group Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) also took the 23 parliamentary seats in the capital Addis Ababa, the only region where it made a clean sweep.
CUD, alongside the United Ethiopian Democratic Front (UEDF) and allied opposition parties, have complained of irregularities during the elections with the CUD threatening not to take up its seats unless there is an investigation by the Nebe.
The Nebe said on Friday that electoral malpractises had occurred in six constituencies in two southern states, requiring a rerun of the polls there that would set back the final official announcement of results set for June 8.
The board neither gave the date for the rerun nor indicate when the final tabulations would be ready.
The delay by Nebe in releasing results, premature victory claims by both the ruling party and opposition as well as post-election pro-government bias in the state media coverage were all criticised by the EU observers last week.
In the last Parliament, Meles’ EPRDF enjoyed a huge majority of 481 seats even without its allies, but had appointed ministers from outside the party.
The hotly contested elections are the country’s third multi-party polls since Meles ousted a Marxist regime in 1991, and the first to be monitored by international observers, including former United States president Jimmy Carter. – Sapa-AFP