Fraudulent voter registration reported

The head of Ethiopia’s National Election Board (NEB) said on Monday that although over 25.6 million people had registered to vote in the country’s third-ever democratic ballot, some abuses of the registration process had occurred. Kemal Bedri, the NEB’s chairman, told reporters at the board’s headquarters in the capital, Addis Ababa, that irregularities had been reported in the south. Children had been registered to vote, and multiple ballots had been given to some people. "Children aged three had been issued with registration papers," he said. "We found that some people’s names were registered three or four times." An election official was now facing criminal charges, he added, after handing out bundles of registration cards to children. "Because of that, we cancelled the registration in that locality, and a new registration will be carried out," Kemal announced. The incident took place in the district of Hadiya, 200 km southwest of Addis Ababa, where the 2000 national elections had to be rerun because of similar abuses. Thirty-five political parties are due to contest the 15 May parliamentary elections this year. Elected Members of Parliament will then choose a prime minister. Of Ethiopia’s 71 million population, 30 million are thought to be of voting age by the NEB. Thus over 85 percent of possible voters have registered - apart from the Hadiya rerun, registration has now closed in the rest of the country. Overall, according to the chairman, the NEB has received around 50 complaints in the Hadiya region. Those involved would be prosecuted, he promised. "They will be tried according to the rule of law," he said, adding that an opposition member had been involved. Kemal also stated that some US $550,000 worth of aid, due to be given to political parties by the end of next week, would not directly influence the outcome. "They are not getting a single cent in direct assistance," he said. "The money will be used for things like posters and materials. This [in] no way would amount to selling the elections." The ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) is due receive $88,750 in kind from international donors and the UN, while the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy will get the equivalent of $71,000. Independent candidates have been allocated $141,000-worth, and the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces is expecting assistance amounting to $47,500. The rest of the donations in kind will be divided among other political parties. Some 1,845 candidates – 271 of them women – will stand for election in May, with almost half of them running for the EPRDF.