The concerted effort made by the UEDF to make sure that the April 2008 Local and By-elections are free, fair and the results are agreeable to all competing parties has been frustrated by the delligerent position of the Ruling Party. As part of this effort we had ubmitted a detailed complaint to the attention of the NEB so that obstacles that had hindered our move to have our candidates registered to the various Councils as per Election Law on March 2008. However, the NEB failed to adequately and seriously address complaints. As the problems kept on worsening and the time for rectifying the problems was expiring as the Election Day was nearing, we requested in writing for an appointment with the NEB, for a face to face meeting to explore solutions to the problems. Following years of our experience working with the NEB, we are amazed that our request for a meeting by our party was ignored thus far by the NEB! Thus, since we are at a stage where the electoral process has totally failed to provide a competitive environment, the date of the election must be postponed and the outstanding problems addressed to enable UEDF to meaningfully participate in the elections.
Therefore, UEDF is compelled to submit the following demands so that the outstanding electoral problems must be redressed to guarantee the legality and credibility of the upcoming elections.
- Re-assign independent and neutral election administrators as clearly provided for in Article 102 of the Constitution. The situation now is that well known members and supporters of the Ruling Party, members of the local administration who have vested interest in winning the election by hook or crook, and individuals who were dismissed from administering the year 2005 election because of their maleficent behavior are appointed to "administer" the elections. However, these cherry-picked election administrators have been performing the duty of maximizing the condition for the Ruling Party's farce victory in the elections. Therefore, we demand that the election administrators at all levels (Qabale, Woreda and Zone) must be replaced by officials that will be recruited on merit as per the country's Civil Servant employment procedures. It is only through such a transparent recruitment procedure that we can expect to have election administrators that are independent and would perform their duty honestly and with integrity.
- The amended Electoral Law 532/2007 Article 82 (1&2) stipulates that public observers shall be elected by the public in each constituency and polling stations and the Board shall invite in writing political organizations that run in the elections. Therefore, we object to the violation of this legal provision by the NEB whereby at present all public observers have been picked from among members of the Qabale Council and various EPRDF Qabale committees. We therefore demand that the public observers (5 in each polling station and 3 in each constituency) must be elected by the public as per provisions of the Electoral Law.
- UEDF holds that it is irregular for the electoral process to have progressed thus far under a situation whereby voter and candidate registration and other electoral activities were concluded in the absence of both local and foreign observers. Therefore, to ensure the credibility of the electoral process and as a confidence building measure, we demand that conditions be facilitated for the deployment of election observers.
- The fact that the NEB representatives were capable of registering 4 to 5 million EPRDF candidates (the number of candidates, inconsistent as it is with global practice of representative democracy)have failed seriously when it came to registering a far lower number (close to 20,000) of UEDF candidates cannot be just lack of competence but rather they were performing a mission of blocking opposition candidate registration. This assertion is vindicated by their continued illegal measures of cancelling the few candidates that we have got registered by overcoming the immense hurdles put in place to block our competition in the elections. Therefore, we demand that all our qualifying members that applied to register as candidates but were denied registration, and all our registered candidates that were illegally cancelled by NEB representatives must be reinstated.
- We demand that the manipulated UEDF Media Time allocation be rectified in accordance with the more than 50 Parliamentary seats we have and the time allocation to competing parties be equitable. The shameful act of reducing the parliamentary seat of UEDF to just 12 and the attempt at allocating its more than 40 seats to a party that had not run and won in the year 2005 elections must stop. On the whole, the disproportionate media time allocation whereby, for example, EPRDF has 14.5 hours of air time on the Radio compared to just one hour allocated for UEDF. This correction is critical to enable UEDF to effectively campaign in the election.
- We demand that the new guidelines, which were unilaterally issued by the NEB, and have become a serious impediment in our effort to campaign be suspended until such time that the political parties that compete in the elections are consulted and appropriate amendments are made to it.
- The irredeemably troubled electoral process, which is caused by the interference of EPRDF cadres, the administration and the police, has resulted in the coercion, beatings, imprisonment, property damage and torching of residences of our members and candidates. Even our elected members of the House of Representatives, who according to the Law have immunity from arbitrary arrests and intimidation, were beaten up and their properties confiscated as they were engaged in the legal activity of organizing candidate recruitment and campaign activities in the regions.
Furthermore, some UEDF candidates that had succeeded in overcoming all the hurdles put in place and have registered as candidates are now thrown in jail in violation of the electoral Law that provides immunity until the elections are concluded. Therefore, we demand that: all interferences with our campaign activities must immediately cease; that all coercions and intimidations of UEDF candidates and members and supporters are stopped; all our members whose properties have been damaged and confiscated are compensated and all those imprisoned as they were engaged in election activities be released immediately. We are convinced that failure to address the above demands that we believe are absolutely necessary for the success and credibility of the elections is a proof to the grand plan laid out by EPRDF and its government to push aside UEDF from the electoral competition.
Finally, as UEDF peacefully struggles for free, fair and genuine elections as the only means to bringing about good governance, peace and stability in our country, we would like to call upon all Ethiopians to provide their usual undivided support!
United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF)
April 04, 2008
Addis Ababa