MEDREK, the main opposition coalition, rejected the results of the May 24th parliamentary and regional elections in a press conference held on Thursday.
Provisional results of the 5th parliamentary and regional elections held on the 23th of May 2015 released by National Electoral Board of Ethiopia(NEBE) on Wednesday showed a landslide win for the ruling coalition. EPRDF won all the 442 out of 547 parliamentary seats the results are released. The final results are expected to be announced on the 25th of June 2015.
Beyene Petros (PhD), chairman of MEDREK, expressed their foreknowledge that the election won’t be fair based on institutional problems and past experiences.
“We have witnessed the Ethiopian people desire to see the government out of office”, Beyene replied when asked why they took part in the election if you already knew it’s not going to be fair.
“And we are all able to see that because of our participation in the election in which we awakened the populace”, Beyene answered. “Who knows, the next stage in the struggle maybe civil disobedience”, he predicted.
The chairman also said that the party believes there is a possibility to conduct an election review process after reaching an agreement with the government on members of an independent review commission.
Merera Gudina (PhD), vice Chairman of MEDREK, on his part said that the government was desperate in its election misconducts after they dismantled its local organizing system. It is after that, Merera surmised, the government used everything including the army to alter the election result.
*******************
Leave a Comment