The EPRDF governing coalition and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi have made all the preparations to win handsomely in the general election this year. They have used the last five years to clear the ground. No independent newspapers are published that could favour the opposition and there are no groups of opponents with the same level of popularity that the CUD and the UEDF had at the time of the 2005 election.
While the EPRDF has expanded its influence, using all the State means to recruit new members, the opposition has fragmented. The acceptance by Hailu Shawel, who is in very poor health, of the EPRDF's conditions to participate in the elections ended up wrong-footing the opponents. There remains the UDJ, whose leader Birtukan Mideksa is still in prison and whose activists have been subject to pressure to join Hailu Shawel's group.
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