Khartoum, April 09: Sudan’s political parties prepared on Friday for their last day of campaigning before voting begins on Sunday, as President Omar al-Beshir who looks set to win the presidential poll makes a final push for parliamentary seats.
Beshir, whose resources have allowed him to stage rallies in all corners of the country, eclipsing the efforts of other parties, is expected to make a final campaign speech later in the day.
South Sudan leader Salva Kiir is expected to address a rally in Juba, the southern capital.
On Thursday, Beshir, who has ruled Africa’s largest country since 1989, promised free and fair elections.
“The elections will be fair and free and clean and exemplary,” he told a large gathering at a massive hydroelectric plant in northern Sudan.
The leader urged people to vote because “elections are a religious duty.”
Three days of polling in presidential, legislative and local elections begin on Sunday in Sudan’s first multi-party elections since 1986.
Residents of south Sudan will also be voting for the leader of the semi-autonomous government there.
The election has been marred by a boycott of the opposition parties on the presidential level, although legislative and local elections are expected to be more competitive.
On Thursday the US envoy to the United Nations said “disturbing trends” could mar the outcome of the vote.
She said a decision by the European Union to withdraw observers from Darfur underscored “how insecure and problematic the electoral process is in that portion of the country and elsewhere.”
Former US president Jimmy Carter arrived in Khartoum on Thursday as election monitors from his Carter Center prepare for the three-day process.
“We are hoping and praying that it will be a fair and honest election for those (who) are participating,” Carter told reporters.
“I regret that some parties have decided not to participate,” Carter said, underlining, however, that “there are around 16,000 candidates who are still involved in the election” on all levels.
The national election commission put to rest the question of a possible delay by confirming the vote will go ahead as planned.
“All the preparations have been completed and all the states are ready for the electoral process,” Abdallah Ahmed Abdallah, its vice chairman, told reporters on Thursday. “The election will start on Sunday as scheduled.”
Beshir has been scrambling to maintain credibility after a boycott by opposition parties who accuse his ruling National Congress Party of fraud.
The Umma party, one of the two largest opposition groups, announced its boycott on Wednesday.
Umma was among a group of opposition parties that had given the government four days from April 2 to implement key reforms in return for a pledge to take part in elections postponed to May.
The former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement had already decided to boycott the election in northern Sudan, after withdrawing its presidential candidate Yasser Arman from the race.
However, the SPLM said it would still field candidates in the sensitive border states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, where the party enjoys support.
With the withdrawal of both Beshir’s key challengers — Arman and Umma’s Sadiq al-Mahdi — Beshir looks set to secure a comfortable win.
But places in the 450-seat National Assembly are still open to competition in many areas, as are the elections for local governors.
—Agencies