Western envoys call for calm as election results trickle in

Western envoys appealed for calm in Ethiopia on Saturday as provisional results from the elections continued to trickle in. In a statement, 21 embassies in Addis Ababa, the capital, urged restraint as both the ruling and opposition parties claimed victory and accused each other of vote-rigging. The National Electoral Board (NEB) announced results for 82 seats - with 37 seats going to the opposition. The opposition gains were concentrated in Addis Ababa, where it was expected to win. On Sunday, the NEB also ordered a re-vote at six polling stations out of the 31,000 around the country. The opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) and allied United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) said they now have more than three times the number of seats they had in the last parliament, but the ruling party was nudging ahead in the vote count. When they went into the race, the CUD and the UEDF held just 12 of the 547 seats in parliament. More provisional results from the 15 May vote, which was declared by foreign observers as the most open and fair in Ethiopian history, were being posted at each of 547 constituencies. Final results are expected on 8 June. As the parties traded accusations of electoral fraud, diplomats called for political dialogue and calm in a country where power has previously been seized through the barrel of a gun rather than the ballot box. "We ask all parties to respect the role of the National Election Board in counting and declaring the results. We ask all political leaders to engage in constructive dialogue," said a joint statement issued by the US, Germany, Great Britain and 18 other Western countries. "Complaints and objections must be pursued peacefully through the legally established mechanisms," it added. The main opposition coalition has said it wants a re-vote and a recount for 84 seats, claiming ballot boxes were stolen, its supporters were prevented from voting and counting was stopped. Berhanu Nega, vice-chairman of the CUD, said his party was prepared to use all peaceful and legal means to challenge the results of the 84 disputed seats. Beyene Petros, vice-chairman of the opposition UEDF, warned of "grave consequences if the results did not reflect the voters' will." "The term 'grave consequences' is implying the kind of downfall previous Ethiopian governments have been facing by not properly assessing the developments of the population," he told reporters. "A peaceful revolution is in the making, and I think all of us can read this from a determined population on the streets of Addis Ababa that was standing for more than 10 hours to vote." The ruling Ethiopia People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), meanwhile, said it had proof that the opposition stuffed ballot boxes, photocopied ballot papers for multiple use and tried to stop women from voting in two of the most hotly contested regions. The party has filed a formal complaint with electoral authorities, said Bereket Simon, the information minister and spokesman for the EPRDF. "The conventional wisdom is that the state or ruling party cheats," he told reporters. "Now we have found that it is otherwise. We have ample evidence that the opposition party has rigged the election." He stated what many observers had concluded, that the opposition made strong gains, particularly in the capital and other cities, which are seen as their strongholds. The ruling party was expected to do well in the countryside, where most of Ethiopia's 71 million people live. Electoral chief Kemal Bedri said the NEB has received complaints for more than 100 constituencies. "The complaints are not specific,” he said. “These blanket statements do not mean they constitute real complaints and that there are sufficient grounds for investigation." Although ruling-party officials have conceded that the opposition made strong gains, they insist that the EPRDF will retain control of parliament, which will reconvene in September. Senior ruling-party officials declared losers so far included the speaker of the lower house, Dawit Yohannes, and Minister for Capacity- Building Tefera Waliwa. Education Minister Genet Zewdie, State Minister for Mines Sinknish Weldemaryam and Revenue Minister Getachew Belay also lost their seats. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi retained his post with 33,000 votes –100 percent of votes cast - after standing uncontested in his home district of Adwa, in northern Ethiopia. The prime minister has pledged greater democracy, and many considered last Sunday's race a test of his commitment to reform. Ethiopia was an absolute monarchy under Emperor Haile Selassie until the mid-1970s, when a Marxist junta overthrew him. Civil wars wracked the ethnically fractured country in the 1980s, and famine took as many as one million lives. Meles has been in power since 1991.