The European Union (EU) said Thursday Ethiopia's electoral body has set up a complex system to deal with election complaints in a tense political environment in the Horn of Africa country.

The system therefore offered the political parties a mechanism to sort out disputes by peaceful means, it said.

In many occasions, EU observers reported that opposition parties presented their cases based on poor evidence, inconsistent testimonies or weak arguing, according to a preliminary statement issued here by Ana Gomez, chief of the EU Election Observation Mission.

The statement referred to the election appeal process, the rerun of elections and the Somali regional elections.

The fact that in some constituencies opposition parties withdrew from complaint investigation panels (CIPs) without presenting their case or before the end of the examination of the case was detrimental to the final recommendation given by the CIPs to the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE), it said.

NEBE is responsible for the administration, conduct and supervision of all elections in Ethiopia's federal and state constituencies.

Ethiopians went to poll on May 15 in the country's two separate elections to elect representatives to the lower House of People's Representatives and eight regional councils. Elections for the 23 constituencies of the Somali regional state took place on Sunday.

However, there were some cases where opposition had strong evidence, the statement said.

On the contrary, in most cases, the evidence for the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) was better substantiated, it said.

As for the rerun elections held in 31 constituencies, the statement said the findings about the polling process were generally positive.

Their overall assessment of the process has been rated as good in 64 percent of the case and very good in 24 percent, the statement said, adding that the rules were implemented according to the electoral law and the reruns took place in a peaceful and orderly manner.

It also mentioned serious violations of human rights and freedoms, saying that "... fearful witnesses were unable to testify and, in one case, an important witness was killed."

According to the statement, a witness from the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) was assassinated on July 16, 5 days after testifying in front of the CIPs.

It added the context of the complaints process was marked by ongoing high tension in the country and stalemate between the ruling and the opposition parties.

In the May 15 parliamentary election, the ruling EPRDF party won 296 parliamentary seats, which would enable it to form the federal government, while CUD and another opposition party, the United Ethiopian Democratic Front, were in second and third places with 109 and 52 seats respectively.

Source: Xinhua