Ethiopia: Human Rights Watch 2010
Human Rights Watch Annual World Report: Ethiopia
The ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) consolidated political control with a striking 99.6 percent victory in the May 2010 parliamentary elections. The polls were peaceful, but were preceded by months of intimidation of opposition party supporters and an extensive government campaign aimed at increasing support for the ruling party, including by reserving access to government services and resources to ruling party members.
Although the government released prominent opposition leader Birtukan Midekssa from her most recent two-year stint in detention in October 2010, hundreds of other political prisoners remain in jail and at risk of torture and ill-treatment. The government’s crackdown on independent civil society and media did not diminish by year’s end, dashing hopes that political repression would ease following the May polls.
The 2010 Elections
Although the sweeping margin of the 2010 victory came as a surprise to many observers, the ruling party’s win was predictable and echoed the results of local elections in 2008. The 99.6 percent result was the culmination of the government’s five-year strategy of systematically closing down space for political dissent and independent criticism. European election observers said that the election fell short of international standards.
In the run-up to the 2010 elections there were a few incidents of violent assaults, including the March 1 killing of Aregawi Gebreyohannes, an opposition candidate in Tigray. More often, voters were influenced by harassment, threats, and coercion. The Ethiopian government’s grassroots-level surveillance machine extends into almost every community in this country of 80 million people through an elaborate system of kebele (village or neighborhood) and sub-kebele administrations, through which the government exerts pressure on Ethiopia’s largely rural population.
Voters were pressured to join or support the ruling party through a combination of incentives-including access to seeds, fertilizers, tools, and loans-and discriminatory penalties if they support the opposition, such as denial of access to public sector jobs, educational opportunities, and even food assistance. During April and May officials and militia from local administrations went house to house telling residents to register to vote and to vote for the ruling party or face reprisals from local party officials, such as bureaucratic harassment or losing their homes or jobs.
(Gadaa.com, 24/01/2011)