Khartoum, April 26: Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir was on Monday declared winner of the country’s first multi-party presidential election in over two decades.
Beshir immediately pledged to respect the provisions of a peace agreement with southern rebels.
But his poll victory, 21 years after he seized power in a bloodless coup, was marred by opposition boycotts, allegations of fraud and question marks over the transparency of the count from European monitors.
“The winner in the election of the president of the republic is Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Beshir from the National Congress Party,” the chairman of the National Election Commission Abel Alier told reporters in Khartoum.
Beshir won 68 percent of votes, Alier added.
Salva Kiir, leader of the former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), was meanwhile declared winner of the simultaneous election for the presidency of the autonomous government of south Sudan.
Kiir, a former Christian rebel commander who is committed to independence from the north, won 92.9 percent of the election in the south with 2,616,613 votes, Alier said.
Kiir had chosen not to stand against Beshir for the national presidency but instead to campaign to lead the south up to a vote on independence promised for January next year under the landmark 2005 peace deal between his movement and the Khartoum government.
In a televised address straight after his victory, Beshir, who championed Sudanese unity in his campaign, pledged that the independence vote would go ahead on time.
“I assure (you) the referendum in south Sudan will take place on schedule,” he said.
Victory for Beshir in the national election had been virtually guaranteed by the withdrawal of his two key challengers in the presidential race — Sudan’s last democratically elected leader, prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi who he overthrew in his 1989 coup, and SPLM candidate Yasser Arman.
The withdrawal of Arman and Mahdi were announced after the ballot papers were printed, controversially in a state printing press. Southerners voted overwhelmingly for Arman, despite his boycott, according to partial results.
In his victory address, Beshir promised that he would intensify faltering efforts to reach peace agreements with Darfur’s myriad rebel factions.
“I assure (you)… that we will work for peace in Darfur,” he said.
Sudan’s first multi-party elections since 1986 — in which voters were electing parliamentary and state representatives as well as a president — have been marred by complaints from opposition leaders and foreign poll monitors as well as accusations of fraud.
—Agencies