Ethiopia's main opposition group filed a court case against the country's National Electoral Board for refusing re-run elections, officials said. "We have lodged this appeal because the manner in which the NEB handled our grievances was very irregular," Medrek chairman Beyene Petros said on Tuesday.
The country's biggest opposition coalition, the eight-party Medrek, who won just a single seat, called for a re-run election and claimed vote rigging.
But the National Electoral Board (NEB) refused opposition’s request and said no party has provided any hard evidence to support their complaints.
Medrek chairman Beyene Petros insisted that they provided believed documents that shown pre-poll intimidation and some vote rigging.
"We submitted an 87-page document of evidence but they never invited us to explain or to present witnesses. The rejection was a face-saving measure," Petros told Reuters.
The AEUP also referred its case with Ethiopia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The results show that Ethiopia's ruling party has won 545 of the 547 seats that were being contested, which gave Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to lead the country for another five years.
The EU and US have both criticised the elections, and said they fell short of international standards. An EU report said political freedoms were restricted and criticised the ruling party’s use of state resources in its campaign.
New York-based Human Rights Watch had also criticized Sunday's poll as corrupted by pre-election irregularities but government officials have denied charges of rigging Election.
In 2005, violence killed some 200 people after opposition parties who claim of fraud triggered clashes with police.
