SUDAN-ELECTIONS: No Contest Expected at Upcoming Presidentials

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Feb 29 1996 (IPS) - The result of Sudan’s no-party elections, to be held on Mar. 7-18 appears to be a foregone conclusion. Few doubt that incumbent head of state Lt-Gen. Omar Hassan al Bashir will emerge victorious.

Al Bashir, backed by the country’s Islamic fundamentalists, is expected to win, and by a comfortable majority, a presidential election his detractors have described as a sham, even though there are at least 41 candidates. The twelve-day poll also includes parliamentary elections, contested by more than 1,000 hopefuls.

Al Bashir’s main adversary, former prime minister Sadiq al Mahdi, opposes the elections, which he says should be preceded by democratic reforms.

“The way out of the present crisis is to form a government of national unity charged with holding a constitutional conference to determine the type of democracy that suits the people of Sudan,” said al Mahdi, who has been in and out of detention since Al Bashir overthrew his government in 1989.

Speaking last week during the Friday prayer at a mosque in Omdurman, one of the three towns that make up Khartoum, he said multi-party elections should be held after the proposed constitutional conference. Thousands converged on the mosque to listen to the former president.

Al Bashir, who banned all political parties and independent newspapers soon after seizing power, said al Mahdi could only contest as an individual and not as the leader of Ummah party. The same goes for other political leaders.

The election is the country’s first since the 1989 coup. The state-run electoral commission expects 10 million voters to turn out to choose a president and 275 members of parliament, who would replace the appointed legislators who now sit in Sudan’s national assembly.

The elections will be held in the 230 districts in the north of the country and 35 out of 45 in the south, where rebels have been fighting for self-determination for 13 years now.

To reduce the financial burden on contestants, the state has undertaken to sponsor all candidates equally. It has been organising their public meetings and paying the expenses for their newspaper, radio and television advertisements.

However, Sudanese opposition leaders here have dismissed the elections. Colonel John Garang, head of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), said the Islamic regime was using the polls to improve its tarnished image abroad.

Khartoum has few friends other than a handful of countries like Iraq, Iran and Mauritania and there is open hostility between Sudan and many of its neighbours.

Egypt accuses Sudan of supporting Islamic militants opposed to the government of President Hosni Mubaraq. Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda have all severed diplomatic ties with Khartoum and Eritrean President Isaiah Affwerki has even turned the Sudanese embassy in Asmara over to an alliance of Sudanese opposition groups.

Relations with the West have also been tense, especially with the United States, which has placed Sudan on its blacklist of countries that support international terrorism.

The diplomatic isolation of Al Bashir’s regime increased this year when, in February, Washington closed its embassy in Khartoum, saying the Sudanese government was no longer able to provide proper security for its staff, while the State department advised another 2,100 U.S. citizens living in Sudan to leave the country.

The U.S. move followed a U.N. Security Council resolution urging Khartoum to hand over three suspects wanted in connection with the attempt to assassinate Mubarak in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, in June last year.

The Security Council gave Khartoum 60 days to apprehend and hand over the suspects to Ethiopia for trial. Egypt and Ethiopia are convinced that Khartoum was behind the the attempt to kill Mubarak.

Since them, Sudan’s government has made a show of looking for the suspects, publishing advertisements in newspapers appealing to citizens to hand over them over to the authorities. However, whether it really means to turn them over to Ethiopia is anyone’s guess.

Al Bashir’s opponents here are sceptical. “What we know is that the Islamic fundamentalists are just playing for time,” said one opposition politician here. “They are looking for a breathing space … to get out of the isolation.”