Tesfaye Mengesha, NEB Secretary

Ato Tesfaye Mengesha heads the National Electoral Board (NEB) of Ethiopia which faces a lot of criticism from some of the contesting parties prior to last week's and this week's local and by-elections.

One opposition party in particular, the United Ethiopia Democratic Forces (UEDF), withdrew last week from the election and levelled a series of accusations against the board for failing to rectify problems that had surfaced during the period prior to election.

However, Tesfaye counters those accusations by claiming that it is because the parties are in capable of carrying out their responsibilities and simply want to shift the blame on NEB.

Tesfay spoke to senior reporter Bruck Shewareged on issues pertaining to  the election. Excerpts.

The National Electoral Board (NEB) has been accused of indifference, not doing enough, at least, to address the several complaints forwarded by the opposition parties. The UEDF which withdrew last week from the election complained of de-registration, beatings and harassment of its candidates. What is be your response to this?

The NEB has gone to great lengths to address and give solutions to the many complaints voiced by the UEDF party. The complaints began to pour in when registration of candidates had commenced.

These complaints include NEB's refusal to register their candidates, arrest of UEDF members, intimidation and so on.  Everybody knows that they have been complaining all along.

The electoral board has not been ignoring these complaints. It has tried to look into the complaints and give solutions. First, one has to know that we look in to a complaint if it is supported by evidence in the first place. It has to be substantiated with evidence if one wants us to investigate his complaints.

Otherwise, complaints based on hearsays alone are no more than an attempt at defaming the good name of others. So we have repeatedly told them to substantiate their complaints with evidence.

To my knowledge, there is no single complaint which they have supported by evidence.

Sorry to interrupt you. But they claim that they have always come up with evidence but the that NEB refuses to recognize it as such. What was the 'evidence'  which you refused to consider as one?

What they call evidence can not stand serious scrutiny. For instance, they simply bring the name list of imprisoned people which they say are party members. It is simply a list. There are no other documents or corroborating evidence. Just because somebody came up with a list, you wouldn't just assume that these people are jailed.

In some cases, as we have tried to verify the claim, some were found to be imprisoned earlier for other reasons. These parties simply came up with prisoners' names and claimed that they are party members and were arrested during campaigns even though they are not party members.  

In other cases, these party members have been already imprisoned for committing different crimes. The party deliberately submit the names of these people as candidates and later claimed that their candidates were put in jail. Their attempt was to the use the campaign or election as an opportunity to secure the release of their members, although these people were jailed for different reasons nothing to do with the election.

They even tried to secure the release of prisoners who were convicted of murder by enlisting them as candidates. We have proof to ascertain that.

Personally, I tried to address their complaints as regards the so-called refusal by election officials to register UEDF candidates. Prof. Beyene (UEDF chairman) and another party official, Ato Olbana, were sitting in my office when I made utmost efforts to register their candidates. And many candidates were registered at last because we tried to make things smooth for them.

One of the reasons for their failure to have their candidates registered was that party representatives must go to the kebeles (which are election constituencies) and submit the names of candidates. But UEDF people go to woredas and try to give the list to woreda officials because they were not able or willing to go to all kebeles election offices. They should have followed the procedure.  Despite that we facilitated things for them to register their candidates.

They tried also to register under-age students as their candidates. This is not right. Moreover, they came up with a list of candidates who were not aware that they were UEDF candidates. These people were willing to represent UEDF. We have evidence that there were forged signatures in the name of these candidates who were not aware of the situation.

In some places, members of the ruling party (EPRDF) were short-listed as UEDF candidates without their knowledge.

But this is illegal, and if true, someone has to be held accountable. What are you going to do about it?

This crime had been committed primarily against these people. For instance, regarding the underage students, elections officials refused to register them. This is the right thing to do. We endorsed the officials' decision not to register the children.

As regards the people who were registered without their consent (and who were not also aware of it), they can file charges against UEDF in a court of law.

The electoral board has never backed down from trying its best to address complaints and give solutions to problems. In fact, we sent a task force on two occasions to places where there were problems. For instance, we sent such a team twice to West Shoa zone to localities such as Chelea, Jeldu, Gindeberet, Dano etc. in order to register their candidates.

So, we don't accept these accusation against the board. Such accusations are simply defamatory.

Let's come to last Sunday's, election. The board said that voter turnout was 90 percent. But opposition parties contest that figure.

Well, the institution which is the closest to this information is the electoral board. Unless someone has a different agenda, it is difficult to contest the board's figure. When we say the turnout was more then 90 percent, we base our statement on facts, evidences collected throughout the country.

In some constituencies the turnout was 95 percent. In some places it even reached 97 and 98 percent. But when we take the average, it was a little more than 90 percent. Our information is credible.

Did you receive complaints about problems that occurred on Sunday?  

There were some complaints from contesting parties. There were also small logistical problems. But we were on hand to address the problem, especially in Addis Ababa. We kept a constant telephone contact with election officials in the regions.

All in all, there was no major problem which could affect the outcome of the election. Some of the parties complained about illegal campaigning on election day in some places. We increased the presence of the police force in those areas.

In some polling stations, the ink which is used to mark voters' fingers in order to ensure that one person cannot vote twice, dried. We replaced the ink quickly. In a few polling stations in Addis Ababa there was shortage of ballot papers. The situation was rectified quickly. Otherwise, there was no serious complaint.   

On Sunday, I went to a number of polling stations in Addis, and I observed that on several occasions there were no representatives from opposition parties who were supposed to observe the voting procedure. Some of the parties say that their observers were forcefully thrown out of the polling stations while some were barred from entering the stations. What is your response?

No, that is not true. Never. It is not true, especially not in Addis Ababa.

According to them, these incidents are not limited to Addis Ababa.

There is no polling station where party election observers were barred from observing elections. The electoral law says that all parties must submit the names of their observers ten days before elections. They did not do that, their reason being that they want to protect the observes' identity in order to save them from possible harassment.

We accept their argument. We called all election offices throughout the country and told them to extend their cooperation to the contesting parties by accepting their observers at the last moment.

However, in Addis Ababa, the reason they failed to send observers is due to their weakness. It is not because of harassment. There were not acts of intimidation under any circumstance in Addis Ababa.

We hear complaints all the time that some are saying that it has become a fashion...

I'm afraid complaints have become one way of a political struggle. In the electoral law, there are procedures in which you can handle grievances. There are clear-cut procedures. The working procedure enables us to give solutions to complaints in a short time, and right on the spot. The law provides for that.  

What these parties, especially the UEDF, do is that usually they don't submit their grievances to election offices where problems occur. If there is a problem in one constituency, the law says that you should go to the election office in that constituency.

UEDF people made it a habit to directly come here, the headquarters. UEDF was trying to create the kind of confusion that surfaced during the 2005 nationwide elections. They come up with all unfounded accusations so that pressure mounts on the electoral board.

However, the board has developed the capacity to quickly investigate and come up with solution to whatever complaints that are brought forth. And we respond to their complaints quickly. I would like to remind them that failure to observe the procedures in the electoral law in submitting your complaints or grievance constitutes an illegal act. That is breaking the rule of law.

One of the problems that opposition parties seriously companied about is the election of vote observers. The law says that contesting parties should be invited through letters and attend the election of community observers. This did not happen, said they and that there is no guarantee as for the holding of free and fair elections. Why didn't you follow the procedure and invite all parties to participate in observing elections?

We tried to explain the situation to UEDF leadership while they were preparing to withdraw from the election.

We discussed the issue with them in person. Yes, the law says that observers must be elected. But public observers need not be elected whenever election comes. If there are public observers who were previously elected, they can continue to serve in that capacity. If some observers vacate their places then you hold an election for new ones. Accordingly, some observers were elected in many localities. The party representatives could have attended those elections.  

Prior to election, orientations were given to all participants. The date was given on the board's calendar. All the particles had a say in determining the date. They could have come to the orientations instead of accusing us. They were just looking for excuses to throw all accusations at us.

And your last words will be...?

As a citizen, you should feel happy when such an event, an election in which the people exercised their choice took place without an incident. You should encourage the process.

If some people feel bad about it, if they want to return to the 2005 election and the chaos that followed, that is not expected from a sane mind. It is not expected from a leadership that is engaged in polities. The country develops when we all work together and foster a good relationship amongst ourselves.