Capital: The opposition says due to a number of pieces of legislation the government has introduced to limit their political participation, the outcome of the Sunday vote was known before the voting. Do you agree with this assessment?
Thijs Berman: That is a political and subjective judgment. As you can perhaps infer that from what we say, we say there is no level playing field, but the picture is more complicated than that. The situation is more complex to analyse and it makes no sense to issue these kinds of judgments. It is much more interesting to see what went well and what can be improved and has to be improved. That is our mandate. Out mandate is not to start shouting.
Capital: As per the provisional results, the ruling parties have got 534 seats while one went to opposition Medrek and another for an independent candidate. Are you surprised by this result?
Berman: In our assessment of this election, we clearly mentioned the lack of a level playing field. This is a shortcoming that is quite serious for us. I can’t comment on these results because it is way too early. We need to take into account for more parameters. So I don’t know what to say about this. But it is obvious that the ruling party had an advantage that others had not.
Capital: Do you think the results are credible and the opposition groups have to accept them?
Berman: There are political decisions to be made here in Ethiopia. I cannot interfere with that. That is not my role. We hope everybody will take on board the assessment we have made. The political conclusions you may draw from that, I leave them gladly that for the politicians. We are observers; we gave the truth you can work with.
Capital: Some people say it is unlikely in democratic election for one party to possess all these seats; almost 98 percent of the seats were called for the ruling party and its affiliate groups?
Berman: Democracy is not a black or white thing. Democracy has several gray colors.
More or less we say this election did not meet all international standards or principles: transparency, level playing field, and atmosphere that could be free of fear, apprehension and security. These are important factors and it could be redressed; you could do something about it in Ethiopia. I hope the Ethiopian Government will cooperate with the European Union if it wishes to do so to improve these factors.
Capital: In our first interview you said that you would be extremely critical if you see some things go wrong. Which factors of the poll’s handlings do you think was handled in a very poor manner?
Berman: Well I think when we speak about the level playing field, we are quite critical. We criticised the use of state resources by EPRDF; we criticised lack of transparency, for instance in 50 percent of the polling stations we observed final results were not posted outside visibly for everybody, that is very critical. There are some concrete facts. We are critical of these. How critical do you want me to be?
Capital: What factors did you appreciate?
Berman: We appreciate very much the way NEBE organised the elections. It has organised them in a competent and efficient manner, cooperating with us fantastically.
Capital: What has been the cooperation of the local authorities you have been getting?
Berman: Excellent. We as the long term and short term observers had an excellent cooperation with the authorities at all levels.
Capital: How many polling stations did you cover?
Berman: We have visited 850 polling stations.
Capital: You came after the election process began. When you did your analysis, did you feel there is some information missing?
Berman: I don’t think we missed that much because we have been speaking about the registration process. It is clear that it is regrettable that registration process started too late in Somali region so that the opposition felt it was unfair because it would campaign less than in other regions. They got less time than other regions and they boycotted the election in Somali region. There are 23 constituencies in the Somali region. Only SPDP party participated. These are regrettable things. Although it is regrettable that we came late since the invitation was very late, I think we have a very accurate picture of the pre-electoral period and of the elections.
Capital: Do you think this year’s elections should be seen as a step forward?
Berman: The picture is the newest. You made some steps forward. For instance the code of conduct and the Joint Parties’ Council are steps forward. NEBE being able to organise the election is a step way forward. But steps backwards are the opposition is finding it much more difficult to organise its own campaign, more difficult than before. The authorities here could have done more to ensure to level the playing field and to make sure the state resources are not used by one party.
The code of conduct has to be respected.
There are main political leaders in exile abroad and one opposition leader is in prison. That is a very serious concern. The Prime Minister has said he needs a strong opposition and he wishes good luck to them then it might be a very important step to ask these leaders to come to the country and to realise that the opposition leader should not be in prison.
Interview with Thijs Berman, European Union election observation mission head
June 13, 2010 by Kirubel Tadesse
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