ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Voters have been intimidated and opposition candidates harassed ahead of Ethiopia's national elections on Sunday, opposition members say, a vote likely to propel the current prime minister — a U.S. ally — into a second decade of power.
Opposition leaders say they worry this year's election may turn into a repeat of 2005's contentious poll which was capped by the arrest of about 100 opposition politicians and activists who challenged the results.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who seized power in the East Africa nation in a 1991 coup, appears likely to win. His Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front denies it repressed its opponents and says candidates have been able to campaign freely. But two opposition campaigners have been killed under mysterious circumstances.
In 2005, a then-energetic opposition won an unprecedented number of parliamentary seats in this country of 85 million, only to endure police crackdowns and the killing of 193 demonstrators after the votes were counted.
"People are so terrorized they just want this election to be over, and they want to go back to their miserable lives," said former politician Berhanu Nega, who lives in political exile in the U.S. city of Pennsylvania and has been sentenced to death in absentia in Ethiopia. >>>
