Fresh elections held in six constituencies

Fresh elections were held on Thursday in six Ethiopian constituencies where disputes arose following allegations of fraud and irregularities in the May 15 polls, the National Electoral Board (NEB) said. "Voting was interrupted in 16 polling stations in these six constituencies and so the electorate have to be allowed to exercise their democratic right," said Mekonnen Wondimu, the NEB's registrar of political parties. The board also announced it was suspending the release of results from five additional constituencies across the country where it is investigating allegations of widespread vote-rigging. He added that the election board might order new elections in other areas based on evidence presented to them by political parties. "We may hold new votes in other areas, but it all depends on the evidence," he said. Mekonnen said the irregularities included disruptions of voting, under-age voting and violent confrontations between supporters of political parties. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has so far won 301 seats out of the 513 counted. Its allies garnered 21 seats, according to provisional results released by the NEB. Opposition parties are contesting the results of 235 seats, covering hundreds of polling stations around the country. They have won 191 seats - a huge increase over the 12 they held in the last parliament. Political parties have until 3 June to provide evidence of fraud, or their complaints will be dismissed. The new vote in 16 polling stations will not materially change the situation. Lawyers for the opposition are expected to attend the High Court on Thursday to challenge Meles's decree banning demonstrations. They are also hoping to prevent the electoral board from releasing results in contested areas. Elections were held in 524 of the 547 seats in Ethiopia's lower house of parliament. The remaining 23 seats will be contested in polls set for August in the Somali Region of eastern Ethiopia. The NEB said that final results, scheduled for release on 8 June, may be delayed. Before the board can ratify the provisional results - which are based on vote counting at about 34,000 polling stations around the country - it must investigate all legitimate complaints. The EU has cautioned that delays in releasing the results raised the prospect of fraud. Before questions surfaced about the count, EU observers had called the campaign and voting stages "the most genuinely competitive elections the country has experienced," despite some problems and human-rights violations. Ethiopia was an absolute monarchy under Emperor Haile Selassie until the mid-1970s, when a brutal Marxist junta overthrew him. Civil wars wracked the ethnically fractured country in the 1980s, and famine took as many as one million lives. The current ruling EPRDF overthrew the junta in 1991.