Oppositions Threaten
Boycott Of Sudan Polls
The
junior partner in Sudan's coalition government says it may unite
with opposition parties to boycott April elections in the north
to defend free and fair voting.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir had earlier warned former rebel
group Sudan People's Liberation Movement, SPML that if it
boycotts the election there would be no southern referendum on
secession in 2011.
SPLM Secretary General, Pagan Amum has however, dismissed
Bashir's warning, saying that if the political parties boycott
the elections in defence of free and fair elections in the
north, the SPLM will join them.
A meeting between Bashir and his deputy, SPLM chief Salva Kiir,
called for Tuesday, was cancelled abruptly because Bashir's
National Congress Party refused to add opposition concerns to
the agenda.
Election discrepancy
The country is expected to begin the first multi-party
presidential and legislative polls in twenty-four years on April
11, but opposition parties accuse the National Elections
Commission of bias towards the NCP, which the commission denies.
The latest in a string of errors emerged on Tuesday as the
government agency charged with printing presidential and
governors' voting papers, said it had only printed presidential
ballots in Arabic. South Sudan is mostly English-speaking.
International observers said hundreds of thousands of names were
missing from the electoral register and opposition parties are
outraged by a NEC decision to allow a state-owned printing press
to print ballots and the voter registration books.
An official of the National Elections Commission said the error
was due to haste and that lists of candidates in English were
being sent to southern voting centres as a reference for those
who could not understand Arabic.
Peace Deal
In 2005 Bashir's NCP and the SPLM signed a peace deal ending
more than 20 years of civil war. The accord gave the south its
own semi-autonomous government and formed a coalition government
in Khartoum.
But SPLM officials have said the NCP remained in full control of
authority and their own ministers were ‘rubber stamps’.
REUTERS/Williams/Yinka
