Ato Tesfaye Mengesha is Secretary of the National Electoral Board (NEB) of Ethiopia. As head of the electoral board, he has come under fire from opposition parties who accuse the board of malpractices, and in some cases, de-registering their candidates.

However, Tesfaye denies these accusations and that his office has, in fact, gone the extra mile to help contesting parties to have their candidates registered.

Bruck Shewareged caught up with Tesfaye and discussed issues related to the upcoming local and by-elections. Exerpts:

How many voters have so far been registered? Can you also compare the number of voters this year with that of the election in 2005?

So far more than 26 million voters have been registered. This number doesn't include those from posts in border areas. When we get all the information from outlying posts, we expect the number of voters registered to increase.

Let us compare this number with the last election in 2005. During the last election, about 26.5 million people were registered from all regions. But this year's 26 million registered voters do not include voters from the Somali region.

As we have repeatedly made it clear, in Somali region the local elections will be held next year. That's because we hold these elections every five years. The Somali region held local elections four years ago. If voters in Somali region were included, the number could reach as high as 27.5 or 28 million.

Some regions registered more voters this year than in 2005. Tigray, Gambella, Dire Dawa and Harari regions registered more voters compared to the previous election. Of the 26 million voters, almost half of them, 49.5 percent, are women.

How come there are more voters this time around while there is marked indifference or less enthusiasm amongst voters compared to the 2005 election?

The reason behind this could be determined later by a formal study. But we can make an educated guess. First one can see that the people are very much aware that local elections are important. It's been more than seven years since these local elections had been held. And the public, I think, is of the mind that members of the local councils have to be replaced.

The other reason for a high number of registered voters could be that the National Electoral Board, the government and the mass media have made a big effort to sensitize the public about the importance of these elections.

The high numbers of voters is indicative of the fact that the people are more aware of the significance of elections in general.

We can also consider the population rise as one factor. The number of registered voters reaching the age of 18 increases annually. So population growth could be one factor.

Age ratio-wise, which age group is the highest amongst registered voters?

It is an important question. But at this point we couldn't determine the age ratio. So far, we have received the names, and gender of voters.

How many candidates have been officially registered?

Originally, thirty-seven parties intended to participate in the local elections. But thirty of the thirty-seven parties have actually fielded candidates. Though not conclusive, according to the information we have so far, nearly 4.5 million candidates have been registered.

Of these, the majority run for kebele councils. Every kebele (the smallest administrative unit) will have three hundred council members. One party can field up to at least, 300 candidates.

Since there are around 17,000 kebeles in the country, you can imagine why the majority of the candidates run for kebele councils.

Of all the candidates, the ruling party has fielded the overwhelming majority.

If you consider the woreda council and the by-elections, more candidates would be fielded. We expect strong campaign from all sides.

How many candidates did the ruling party field?

I can't give you concrete number right now but the information we have is that it is the ruling party which fielded the largest number of candidates.

How about opposition parties? How are they faring?

The other competing parties include not just opposition parties but also EPRDF-allied parties. Among these allied parties, the Afar National Democratic Party (ANDP) fielded the highest number of candidates, second only to the ruling party EPRDF. Next to ANDP comes the Benishangul-Gumuz People's Democratic Unity Front. The third one is the Gambella People Democratic Movement.

The Somali People Democratic Party, and the Harari National League come fourth and fifth in terms of the number of candidates that the EPRDF allied parties have so far fielded.

From the non-EPRDF allied parties side, the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM), the Oromo National Congress (ONC), the All Ethiopian National Movement (AENM), Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU), EDUP-Medhin and Berhan for Unity and Democracy Party have more or less equivalent number of candidates that were registered for the upcoming election.

It takes a big organizational capacity in order to successfully manage an election in which 4.5 million candidates participate. How are you doing in this respect?

It is not the first time that we hold local elections. This is the third time. There has been no incident of voting disruption due to logistical problems. All the elections that we held were free and transparent.

I understand that for an outside observer, this looks a huge, insurmountable task. One could wonder even what kind of ballot paper is needed to accommodate three hundred candidates in a single kebele.

Our experience and that of other countries show that it can be handled. For instance, parties need not to come up with different symbols for different candidates. And there won't be a simple ballot paper for a single kebele. In each kebele there are what we call "kebele constituencies," each with ten to twenty seats for kebele Councils. These add up to 300 hundred. Parties divide their candidates in groups to run in the kebele constituencies.

In each kebele constituency, one party will have only one symbol. That symbol serves all the party's candidates in that single kebele constituency.

We prepared a ballot paper which accommodates up to hundred candidates, i.e. ten parties' names are found in ten rows and ten candidates' names in ten columns.

The question is, "How do you identify the candidates?" In each kebele, each candidate is registered. And for each candidate in each kebele, a poster has been prepared and posted in public places with the candidates' names and election symbol.

Each voter can select candidates individually or select all the candidates of one party which he or she supports. In our voting tradition so far, voters tend to vote for all candidates from a single party that they give their support to.

We believe that the voting procedure we have instituted would pose no obstacle to voters.

Opposition parties have serious complaints against the electoral board. Complaints include de-registration and insufficient reasons in order to disqualify their candidates from being registered. What will be your response to these allegations?

There are many complaints that we have received. You raised about de registration. But honestly speaking, what gave rise to problems in the registration work is the parties' failure to follow the correct proceedings when they first come to register their candidates. It is basically their own mistake.

Despite that, we cooperated with them so that the problems could be rectified quickly and have their candidates registered.

For instance, the law says that for local elections, candidates must be registered at kebele offices. For woreda council elections, candidates must also be registered at kebele offices. That's what the law says.

However, these parties with complaints come to woreda offices and try to hand in the names of all of their three hundred candidates for registration. The woreda officials usually tell then to go down to kebeles and have their candidates registered there. But because they lack the capacity or the will to go to all kebeles, they simply won't do that. They just hand in their candidates' names to woreda officials and report to their party headquarters that they have successfully registered the candidates.

The woreda offices do not have the authority to register. The woreda election officials cannot give order to their kebele counterparts to register these candidates by dictating their names from the list that the parties' representatives gave them.

We've notified the parties that they cannot simply hand in lists of candidates to woreda officials and think that their candidates are registered. We told them that they have to go to kebele election offices for registration and assured them that if they face problems at kebele levels, we would intervene and give solution.

Inspite of their mistakes, we extended big support to them in order to have as many of their candidates as possible registered before the deadline for registration reached. I used to spend long hours in office, even up to 10 pm, and help these parties to register their candidates. So, I don't believe that their candidates were barred as a result of misdeeds on our part.

How about de-registration?

What they call de-registration is this. They think that they have registered their candidates just because they gave woreda or kebele election officials the list containing the names of their candidates. But having your candidates registered requires more than that. They have to meet certain requirements. Failure to do that will result in "not being registered," not "de-registered". You can only be de-registered if in the first place you were registered.

But these parties, as I said, think that submitting the list with candidates names is equal to registration. That's why they complain about de-registration.

If there are candidates who were properly registered before the deadline and later de-registered, I myself, am ready to have them registered again.

Opposition parties also complain about lack of access to state media. What's your reaction?

There is a formula according to which a certain air time is allotted for the parties. And I think the formula is fair, especially to competing parties. For instance, it doesn't mainly take the number of each party's candidates into consideration.

There are other variables, however, that are considered in the equation. For example, the number of seats that a party has in the federal parliament is given 60 percent. 30 percent is given to each party just because it is participating in the election. The rest, 10 percent, goes to the number of candidates that each party has fielded. So I think, it is more or less fair arrangement.

And your last word will be...?

There is one trend that we observe about contesting parties. Instead of working hard to attain their goals, they tend to shift the blame on others for their failure. And usually such accusations are not supported by facts. This is not just right. How can they get a chance to lead this country in the future, if they stick to the practice of accusing others for their own failures?