Sudan vote credibility queried
2010-04-07 15:59
Khartoum - The credibility of Sudan's first general elections in two decades has been thrown into further doubt after a main opposition party extended its boycott of the vote and jittery EU monitors warned they may pull out of war-torn Darfur.
European Union election monitors, citing security concerns, said on Wednesday they were re-assessing their deployment in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.
"If I feel that security conditions are not guaranteed - not just for the observers but for the people of Darfur - and if I am not certain these elections will allow for credible monitoring, I will not observe them," EU head of mission Veronique de Keyser said.
Sudan is to hold its first multi-party general election since 1986 on April 11-13, which will include presidential, legislative and local polls.
The vote is considered a prelude to a referendum on southern independence scheduled for January 2011.
The former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement said late on Tuesday it was extending its boycott to include the northern states in Sudan including Darfur.
Threatening observers
But it said it would still field candidates in the sensitive border states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, where the party enjoys support.
"After reviewing the situation ... we the SPLM for the northern sector have arrived at the conclusion to boycott elections in the 13 northern states of Sudan," excluding the sensitive states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, Pagan Amum, the secretary general, said Tuesday night after a meeting of the SPLM political bureau.
"We will continue to participate in the elections in southern Sudan, Nuba mountains (in south Kordofan), and Blue Nile, and we are sure the SPLM will win those areas," he said.
Amum lashed out at Omar al-Bashir's National Congress Party, accusing it of intimidation.
"The NCP continues to issue threats to observers and you can imagine if they are threatening observers to cut their limbs and noses, what will happen to Sudanese people," he said, in reference to statements Bashir had made.
Unlimited access
Amum said Sudanese authorities had expelled observers with the Carter Centre in nine northern states, saying it revealed the NCP's "intolerance", but Graham Elson, field officer with the centre that was set up by US former president Jimmy Carter, denied anyone had been kicked out.
Softening his approach regarding observers, Bashir on Wednesday said he would grant Carter and his election observers unlimited access in the country.
"In two days, president Carter will arrive and I will receive him and will give him and his centre permission to go to any area of Sudan and to monitor any area in Sudan," Bashir told a rally north of Sudan, as the election campaign begins to wind down.
In the run-up to the elections, opposition groups wavered over their intention to participate and on what level.
The Democratic Unionist Party, one of Sudan's two main opposition groups, said on Tuesday it would present Hatim al-Sir as presidential candidate, after an initial decision to boycott.
Short delay
The other key opposition party, the Umma party, is expected to announce its level of participation in the election later on Wednesday, after it had given Bashir a list of conditions, including freezing "repressive" security measures and pushing back the election date.
The Umma and the DUP came first and second respectively in the 1986 elections three years before Bashir came to power in a military coup.
In a slight shift in position, the United States said on Monday it would accept a short delay in the landmark elections if it helped address concerns, after initially stating it was confident the vote would start on time.
But Sudan's national election commission insisted on Tuesday that the vote will go ahead as planned on April 11-13.
North and south Sudan were engaged in a bitter decades-long civil war that left around two million dead and some four million displaced.
The two parties signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, which provided for both the elections and the referendum.
- SAPA