Sudan’s Ruling Party Rigged Upcoming Vote, Crisis Group Says
March 31, 2010, 4:52 AM EDTBy Maram Mazen
March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir’s government is rigging the country’s first multiparty elections in 24 years scheduled for next month, especially in the western region of Darfur, the International Crisis Group said.
The government has “manipulated the 2008 census, drafted the election laws in its favour, gerrymandered electoral districts, co-opted traditional leaders and bought tribal loyalties,” the Brussels-based group said yesterday in a report.
Opposition parties in northern Sudan are scheduled to meet today in the capital, Khartoum, to decide whether to boycott the vote in sub-Saharan Africa’s third-biggest oil producer. The opposition also accused the government of rigging the election and says that the National Elections Commission is biased in favor of Bashir’s National Congress Party.
The April 11-13 elections for the presidency, parliament and state governorships will take place five years after a peace agreement ended a 20-year civil war between the Muslim north and the south, where Christianity and traditional religion dominate.
“The legal environment for free and fair elections does not exist,” Fouad Hikmat, International Crisis Group’s Sudan special adviser, said in the report. “The international community should acknowledge that whoever wins will lack legitimacy.”
Sudan’s government dismissed the accusations.
“These accusations are not true and have no basis,” Rabie Abel Ati, adviser to the minister of information, said today by phone from Khartoum. “The registered voters will come and vote in front of international observers and in front of everyone to see.”
Rigging Before Vote
Crisis Group said the rigging is taking place before the vote. While it has occurred across Sudan, it said, the focus has been Darfur, where Bashir’s government has fought insurgents for the past seven years in a conflict that has killed as many as 300,000 people and displaced almost 10 times that number, according to United Nations estimates. The government puts the death toll at about 10,000.
“Winning big in Darfur is central to the NCP’s plan to capture enough votes in the north to ensure its continued national dominance,” according to the Crisis Group report.
Bashir, who has ruled Sudan since coming to power in a military coup in 1989, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges he was responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
Greater Violence
During the voter registration period, the elections commission neglected camps for internally displaced persons, while it worked hard to register nomads in remote areas loyal to the Khartoum government, the report said. The authorities also gave citizens of neighboring Chad and Niger who settled in Darfur identity papers so they could vote, it said.
The frustration the vote will cause among the citizens of Darfur may lead to greater violence, said E.J. Hogendoorn, Crisis Group’s Horn of Africa project director.
“Since the April vote will impose illegitimate officials through rigged polls, Darfuris will be left with little or no hope of a peaceful change in the status quo,” Hogendoorn said in the report. “Instead many will look to rebel groups to fight and win back their lost rights and lands.”
Crisis Group called on international observers, such as the Atlanta-based center founded by former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn, the European Union and the African Union, to document “the severely flawed process.”
Peace negotiations between the government and rebels in Darfur should resume immediately after the elections and any agreement reached must include a new census, voter registration and a fresh vote, it said.
--Editors: Karl Maier, Eddie Buckle
To contact the reporter on this story: Maram Mazen in Khartoum via Cairo at mmazen@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.
