ADDIS ABABA, May 6 (AFP) — Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has accused opposition parties of fomenting ethnic hatred that could erupt into violence ahead of elections next week in the impoverished Horn of Africa nation.

Meles Zenawi

He criticized the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), an opposition umbrella group, for trying to "create havoc and hate" ahead of the May 15 polls and warned that such behaviour would not be tolerated.

"As the opposition knows they cannot win the elections, they are now preaching anti-peace and anti-harmony among people and (promoting) ethnic hatred," Meles said in a televised address carried live late Thursday.

"The government is ready to break this tendency by using administrative means," he said.

"When the Interahamwe of Rwanda preached hatred among people, the end result was, as everyone knows, devastating," he said, referring to Rwandan Hutu militia blamed for the 1994 genocide in which some 800,000 people were slaughtered in 100 days.

"The Ethiopian opposition is following the same trend to create havoc and hatred among people by agitating fabricated agendas," Meles said.

"Those who want to live in peace and harmony have to use the vote to say no to anti-peace and hatred," he said, urging the country to support his Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) at the polls.

The prime minister also accused CUD of encouraging unregistered voters to go to polling stations on voting day in a bid to confuse matters.

"They want to create havoc during voting day and they want people to be frustrated and prevent legally-registered voters from casting their ballots," Meles said in the two-and-a-half-hour speech.

The election will be Ethiopia’s third since the EPRDF came to power in 1991 and the first ever to be monitored by international observers.

In his speech, Meles defended or brushed away criticism of Ethiopia for the expulsion of three US-based pro-democracy groups and an order, since overturned by a court, that had barred most local observers from poll watching.

The National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), and IFES, formerly the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, were expelled in March after authorities said they were illegally operating in the country.

"We have invited observers from all over the world," Meles said. "The three American institutions that were asked to leave were not invited."

"They entered the country as tourists and claimed to be observers. As a sovereign country, they should have respected the laws."

Last month, the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) refused to recognise the observer status of 30 local non-governmental organizations although a high court on Tuesday ordered the body to reverse the decision.

"As for local observers, the government has nothing to do with it, but as a competing party, we are not in favor of local observers who have not proved their independence from any party influence," Meles said.

He assured his audience that the government would do its best to ensure the election goes smoothly, but urged Ethiopians to conduct themselves peacefully on voting day.

"The people have the highest responsibility in their hands to see that everything goes by rule of law," Meles said.

The opposition is due to give a televised speech later Friday.