AU fight credibility crisis ahead of Ethiopian polls

(PANA)-- African Union (AU) election observers, who arrived in Ethiopia Tuesday to observe the country’s parliamentary polls, are dogged by a credibility crisis, heightened by the AU’s perceived ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ approach.

Botswana’s former president Ketumile Masire, dismissed earlier complaints by the Ethiopian opposition parties that the AU election observers were unlikely to be impartial in their work. ‘If they (Ethiopian opposition) do not trust the AU election observation mission, they must show proof, otherwise that would be pre-judging the mission,’ the former president told a news conference, attended by the 70 observers selected for the task.

The Ethiopian opposition coalition, Medrek, made up of eight political parties, said in late April that it doubted the impartiality of the AU election observers. They said they did not trust the AU team that observed previous elections in 2005. However, the election observers said their credibility should not be an issue of discussion ahead of the elections, given that the mission included senior heads of electoral bodies and prominent leaders from across the continent.

‘The Mission is composed of people appointed for this particular mission of observing the elections. We are here to perform a duty. This is a test to us and a test of what happens in Ethiopia,’ the former president said. He added that the election observers would pay close attention to the conduct of the elections, including the voting for the country’s 547 parliamentarians all the way to the announcement of the final winners.

Ethiopia is run through a parliamentary system like the British, where the party with the majority of parliamentary seats in an election forms the government. The elections, due on 23 May, will see some 31 million voters cast their votes for one of the more than 63 political parties gunning for various positions. Some 40,000 local election observers, 170 observers from the European Union and the 70 African Union observers will witness the election.

The chief of the AU election observer mission said the team members would follow closely the electoral process, including the final declaration of the results. ‘We do not want to associate with this apparent pre-judgement of our work’ the former president said.

Ethiopian’s National Electoral Board (NEBE) is expected to deploy some 200,000 polling staff to oversee the elections. The results would be expected 48 hours after the close of polling. The counting of the votes would begin immediately after a 30-minute break on Sunday, NEBE spokesman Mohamed Abdurahman told PANA.

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