Khartoum, April 21: An internet video allegedly showing members of Sudan’s National Election Commission stuffing ballots to guarantee the re-election of President Omar al-Beshir is “fabricated”, the NEC said on Tuesday.
“It is fabricated. We cannot investigate everything that is on the internet,” Hadi Mohammed Ahmed, a senior official with the NEC told reporters in Khartoum.
Enough Project, an American group that observes Sudan, late Monday posted a video on YouTube showing alleged ballot stuffing at a Sudanese voting booth.
The video shows men dressed in traditional east Sudan outfits — a dark waistcoat over a white robe– stuffing plastic ballot boxes, supervised by a person wearing an orange vest, worn by NEC officials in polling stations.
Some Sudanese opposition parties, including several that boycotted last week’s election, had accused Beshir of fraud.
“My in-laws were all registered in two polling stations in Um Badda (a suburb of Khartoum), but I received no votes in those stations. How is this possible?” presidential candidate Abdallah Deng Nial, of the Popular Congress Party said.
“This is corruption. They switched the ballot boxes,” he said, adding that he received the vote count from party representatives at the polling stations.
Some 16 million registered voters had been asked to choose their president, legislative and local representatives in a five-day vote that ended on Thursday.
Southerners were also voting for the leader of their semi-autonomous government.
—Agencies