ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The European Union criticised Ethiopia on Thursday for flaws in bitterly-contested elections that have given Prime Minister Meles Zenawi a second term.
In a report published in Addis Ababa, an EU election observer mission listed a catalogue of irregularities in the May 15 poll and the lengthy counting-process that followed, including unnecessary delays and intimidation of opponents.
In one case, a witness to opposition allegations of fraud, Wudu Amelegn, was assassinated days after testifying to a complaints investigation panel, the report said.
"Until 15 May when voting started, the picture was positive. After that day we had good and negative sides," EU chief observer Ana Gomes told reporters.
"In several important aspects, international standards for genuine democratic elections were not met."
Unrest over alleged vote-rigging led to the police shooting dead at least 36 protesters and arresting thousands more in June.
After nearly three months of counting, preliminary results gave Meles outright victory on August 9. The opposition has refused to accept the results.
The EU report chided Ethiopia for flawed handling of complaints and re-runs of elections in some constituencies.
Some witnesses to alleged election fraud were unavailable because they were afraid, had been detained or -- in Amelegn's case -- "an important witness was killed", the report said.
"These practices taken as a whole are seriously undermining the transparency and fairness of the elections," the report said.
INTIMIDATION
"The climate of threats and intimidation was maintained throughout the complaints investigation process."
Gomes said she was considering suing a state-run daily newspaper for defamation after it suggested she was favouring opposition parties.
The Ethiopian Herald carried an article titled "Gomes, Clarke: Neutral observers or hidden dealers?" in which it criticised her and another EU official, Tim Clarke.
Gomes called it a "garbage attack".
The election was only the second real multi-party poll in Africa's top coffee producer, the second most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa with 72 million people.
Opposition parties boycotted Ethiopia's first national election in 1995, handing the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) a straight victory. The ruling party comfortably won polls in 2000.
Meles has in the past been feted by Western leaders and was a prominent member of the British-sponsored Africa Commission giving recommendations to the G8 group of rich nations on how to tackle the continent's problems.
But accusations of fraud in the poll, then the violence and mass arrests which followed, have for many shed doubt on his democratic credentials.
How are you? Please do what you may, but do not throw yurself from your apartment. I want you to see the change in Ethiopia. Then you can throw yourself from the top of Niagara fall.
