Poll body to probe complaints in 135 constituencies

Ethiopia's electoral board said on Monday it would investigate allegations of vote rigging in 135 constituencies out of the 299 where complaints were lodged following parliamentary elections on 15 May. "Of the 299 constituencies where it was alleged that fraud had taken place, investigations will take place only in 135 constituencies," Getahun Amogne, spokesman for the National Electoral Board (NEB), told IRIN. "Complaints lodged for the rest of the constituencies were not properly documented and [were] unsubstantiated according to the review body," he added. The investigations are expected to start next week, but political parties were on Monday given 48 hours to appeal against NEB's rejection of 164 complaints. Rival political parties have lodged 61 types of complaints, including gunmen intimidating voters, people being forced to vote for certain parties, ballot boxes being stuffed or disappearing and the number of ballots exceeding those of registered voters. The ruling party has won 302 seats and its allies 26, according to the provisional results released so far. Opposition parties got 194 seats in the 547-seat lower house of parliament, up from the 12 seats they won during elections in 2000. Violence erupted in the country on 6 June as students took to the streets and taxi drivers went on strike to protest the alleged ballot rigging. Police are accused of shooting to death at least 36 protesters and detaining hundreds of people during three days of political unrest. The government imposed a ban on demonstrations in a bid to curb the violence. An attempt by the main opposition group, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, to overturn the ban through the courts failed after a judged threw out the appeal. In a statement released at the weekend, the information ministry called on all political parties to abide by a non-violence pact signed between them following the disturbances. "It must be noted that any attempt to use legal and illegal measures for the sake of expediency is totally counter-productive," it said.