Voting quiet in Sudan election

Jean-Jacques Cornish — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 22:00:00 +0000

A second day of voting starts shortly in Sudan presidential, parliamentary and state elections. Yesterday (Monday) passed peacefully with President Omar Al Bashir voting at a Christian school in the capital Khartoum accompanied by his two wives and a number of advisors, cabinet ministers and generals. The turnout so far is reportedly low across Sudan’s 18 provinces.
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With some political parties turning their back on the election, parliamentary candidate for the ruling National Congress Party Nafi Ali Nafi says the success of the election will best be guaged by the turnout.
Presidential advisor Ibrahim Ghandour voices government anger at the European Union assertion that an environment conducive to participatory and credible elections doesn’t exist in Sudan.
With Sudan eager to follow Iran and Cuba in from the cold, Ghandour says it’s very important what the world makes of these elections which go into a third and final day of internal voting tomorrow before moving to seven foreign centers for a further three days of polling.
He insists though that the most important view is that of the Sudanese people themselves.
Voting has been cancelled in two regions of Darfur and seven in South Kordofan because rebel activity makes it too dangerous.
Ghandour says the government will move from this election into the national dialogue it launched at the beginning of last year following deadly unrest in September 2013.

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Sudan wants to be next in line to fall into US favour

Jean-Jacques Cornish — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 22:00:00 +0000

By Jean-Jacques Cornish
Days after a handshake ended a half century of US enmity with Cuba and weeks after Washington ended 36 years of daggers drawn with Tehran by striking a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity, Sudan is voicing expectations of being next in line for better treatment by the last remaining superpower.
The country made it onto the U.S. terrorism list for, among other things, sheltering Osama Bin Laden and stayed there because of its harsh suppression of separatism in its western province of Darfur. Sudan’s president Omar al Bashir is still wanted by the International Criminal court to face charges of crimes against humanity in Darfur.
But in 2011 it accepted the secession by South Sudan, earning kudos from Washington and the international community at large.
On Monday, 13 million registered voters head for the polls for presidential, parliamentary and state elections that the Sudanese government is at pains to demonstrate are free and fair.
It is doing this in the face of a boycott by a small but vociferous group of parties who maintain Bashir has stalled on the political dialogue he launched at the start of 2014.
Washington, together in the western troika on Sudan with Norway and Britain have criticised holding the election before the promised national dialogue.
The European Union holds that this timing undermines the legitimacy of the process.
This provoked an angry response from Khartoum that the EU stance amounts to spiritual support for armed rebel movements fighting the government in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan provinces.
The Sudanese government says its constitutionally obliged to hold elections now. It’s statement stipulates that it will return to national dialogue after the poll.
The dialogue was necessitated by violent protests against Bashir in 2013 that left a number of dead.
Nafi Ali Nafi, who as presidential advisor until last year was considered the third most powerful man in Sudan and is now a parliamentary candidate, says the dialogue was bogged down in procedural issues raised by the opposition.
“They were not interested in engaging on substantive matters,” says Nafi. “They were insisting on the government dissolving and becoming a transitional administration.
“In other words they wanted their prize even before the talks proper started.”
Bashir, who came to powering coup 25 years ago and subsequently won two elections , has further complicated matters by going back on an undertaking not to seek another term.
“That was not his decision to make,” insists Nafi. “It is a matter for the ruling National Congress Party to decide.”
While there is a significant body of international opinion dismissing the poll as a sham, Washington is coming around to the view that Bashir is the best of a number of bad options.
US sources say the strongman manages to maintain stability in a dangerous neighbourhood.
By supporting the government in Yemen against mounting rebel attack, Sudan is squarely onside with the U.S.
Above all, though, the fear in Washington and indeed in other Western capitals, is of a repetition of the Libyan nightmare where they pushed for and won the first prize of getting rid of Muammar Gadaffi and ended up with a catastrophic failed state feeding and arming terrorists in the region and beyond.

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Voting quiet in Sudan election

Sudan wants to be next in line to fall into US favour