Ethiopian general elections, 2005

Ethiopian general election, 2005

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15 May 2005

2010 →

All 547 seats to the House of Peoples' Representatives
274 seats needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Meles Zenawi	Hailu Shawul	Beyene Petros
Party	Tigrayan People's Liberation Front	All Ethiopian Unity Party	All-Amhara People's Organization
Alliance	Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front	Coalition for Unity and Democracy	United Ethiopian Democratic Forces
Last election	481	103 seats, 48.19%	did not stand
Seats won	327	82	43
Seat change	-154
Popular vote	12,237,655	3,983,690	2,058,294
Percentage	62.65%	20.39%	10.54%

Prime Minister before election

Meles Zenawi
EPRDF

Prime Minister

Meles Zenawi
EPRDF

Ethiopia held general elections on May 15, 2005, for seats in both its national House of Peoples' Representatives and in four regional government councils. Under pressure from the international community, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi promised that this election would be proof that more democracy would come in this multi-ethnic nation; international elections observers from the European Union (EU) and the U.S.-based Carter Center were present to observe the results. This election succeeded in attracting about 90% of the registered voters to the polls. A government ban on protests was imposed throughout the election period.

EU observers remarked on the "significantly enlarged freedoms for political campaigning in comparison to previous elections". Political parties campaigned actively, and opposition parties appeared to be increasingly active in the rural areas. The observer mission described the atmosphere "during the campaign was calm, culminating in two massive, peaceful rallies in Addis Ababa, one by the EPRDF and one by the opposition."

Despite this, opposition parties alleged numerous cases of intimidation, and arrests of its supporters. While the EU observers could not investigate all of the alleged cases, it did confirm those it investigated. International human rights groups likewise cataloged a number of cases of human rights violations. However, the EU observers wrote in their final report, they "recorded no arrests of EPRDF supporters for campaign offences."

Towards the close of the campaigning, the language became more vicious, with each side accusing the other of numerous violations of the campaigning rules. "Campaign rhetoric became insulting," the EU observer's report noted, then continued:

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