Semayawi party: “This election was worse than the previous ones”

Semayawi party announced its rejection of both the process and the results of last weekend’s election. The party rejected the election result in a press conference at its headquarters on Friday May 29, 2015.

The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia(NEBE) released  on Wednesday provisional results for the parliamentary and regional elections. The ruling coalition EPRDF won all the 442 out of 547 parliamentary seats – for which the results are released so far. NEBE is expected to announce the final results on the 25th of June 2015.

Semayawi party said, in its press conference, that it participated in the election with the full knowledge that there are no independent and competent institutions and that the ruling party wouldn’t allow for real elections to be held.

“We don’t expect anything”, said the leaders of the party in reply to a question whether the party expects to win seats from the 105 parliamentary seats results that are yet to be announced

The party also distributed a written statement for the media, during the press conference, detailing a laundry list of election malpractices that the party claims to have been done by the ruling party and the NEBE.

Illegal arrests, beatings and even murder of its members and election observers are some of the malpractices allegedly carried out by the government before voting day.

Seleshi Feyisa, vice chairman and election affairs chief of the party, said the misconducts detailed testifies that Ethiopia is still not able to conduct free and fair elections. “This election is even worse than the previous ones being very biased, unfair and non-credible”, Seleshi added.

Yilikal Getnet, Chairman of Semayawi party, said: “conducting free elections to establish a government of the people is impossible in a country where there is no freedom”. Therefore, this maxim will continue to be the guiding principle of our democratic and peaceful struggle, he said.

Yilkal also emphasized on the peaceful nature of their struggle and warned of government misrepresentation of it as violent.

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