Speaker warns on Sudan polls
2008-04-08 18:10
Khartoum - Sudan's elections next year will not be fair if parliament fails to review key laws before the end of June, the deputy speaker said on Tuesday.
A 2005 peace deal ended war between Sudan's northern government and southern rebels, but both sides accuse each other of foot dragging over revising the laws set out under the agreement.
"You cannot have transparent and fair elections unless you amend laws connecting to the political process," said deputy speaker Atem Garang, from the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement.
Garang told Reuters the laws had to be revised during the current parliamentary session, which began on Monday and ends at the end of June, to allow enough time for them to take effect before the elections in 2009.
Garang said four key laws on police, national security, media and the electoral bill had to be reviewed.
"Otherwise you will have elections which will not be free and fair," Garang told Reuters.
Garang's SPLM and other parties say state media are used entirely by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's National Congress Party, giving it an unfair advantage.
There is also conflict over the electoral bill, which governs the technicalities of voting. Garang expected the electoral bill to be ready in the next week to 10 days while the police law was already before parliament.
"From now until the end of June we will also be expecting the other two laws to be tabled - media and national security," he added.
Opening the parliament sitting on Monday, President Bashir said he was committed to ensuring free elections.
Sudan's north-south civil war broadly pitted Khartoum's Islamist government against mostly Christian, animist rebels. Claiming some 2 million lives, it was complicated by oil, ethnicity and ideology.
A separate war blew up in 2003 in Sudan's western Darfur region. Fighting there continues.