ADDIS ABABA (Sept 17) - Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter has expressed qualified support for Ethiopia's parliamentary elections but said it was up to the opposition to decide if they accepted the results.
Opposition parties made strong gains in the June polls but continue to argue they were robbed of a victory by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front, which was officially declared the winner with 327 seats in the 547-seat parliament.
"The election process demonstrated significant advances in Ethiopia's democratization process, including most importantly the introduction of a more competitive electoral process," Carter said Thursday night during his visit to Ethiopia.
Carter said problem areas included the handling of complaints of electoral violations and repeat voting.
"It is up to the opposition parties to decide either to join or boycott the parliament," Carter said.
He said that he met with the main opposition group, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, but did not reveal details of their discussions.
Officials from the Atlanta-based Carter Center, set up by the former president, regularly monitor elections in nations with emerging democracies and sent observers to the Ethiopian vote.
"We urge the leaders of the new parliament, both ruling party and opposition, to work together to devise new rules and practices to ensure that all voters' interests are represented in parliament," Carter said.
It was the first election in Ethiopia's history that foreign experts were allowed to observe.
Human rights groups say security forces killed 42 people when in June they fired on protesters angered by alleged election fraud.
