Forum for Democratic Dialogue in Ethiopia a coalition of eight parties’ vice president and Public Relation Mr. Gebru Asrat told SSI:” as the time will be divide the parties current seat in the parliament and the number of candidate they will compete, the ruling party will have an undue advantage, we may get few minutes a day. “  

According to Gebru in this year’s campaign the program will not be fair for opposition parties.  “The main agenda to the Forum is its social political, economic and political programs - the central issue here is the citizen’s security and freedom of expression and movement”, said Gebru.

National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) allocated 34 million birr to transmit election campaign on the national radio, television and press. National Broadcasting Agency, plans to present 495 hour on television and radio and 849 columns in the press.

Ethiopian prime Minster Meles Zenawi has repeatedly stated that the  Ethiopian government has learnt from the 2005 election  problems and is committed to making  the elections peaceful, free, fair transparent and democratic.

The airtime was set after the three opposition groups reached an agreement with government on the electoral code to make the election free and fair excluding Forum. The code sets out campaigning, voting and party symbol guidelines as well as how to deal with intimidation and violence, abuse of office and corruption. It also includes the setting up of a panel to handle election disputes.

On other news NEBE announce over 22 million voters have been registered across the country until last Monday. Public relations head with NEBE, Mohammed Abdurrahman told SSI on Wednesday that documents indicate that over one million electorates are being registered daily.  

This year elections will be the first since 2005, after a deadly violence sparked by allegations of vote cheating claimed the lives of almost 200 people.