Khartoum, April 21: Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party and former southern rebels agreed Tuesday to accept the results of last week’s elections.
Second Vice President Ali Osman Taha, of President Omar al-Beshir’s NCP, consented to abide by electoral commission decisions at talks with Salva Kiir, head of the southern former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).
“We agreed to accept the results as announced by the National Election Commission and to respect (its) decisions,” Taha said in a statement carried by state television.
Ballots in Sudan’s first multi-party electoral contest since 1986 are still being counted.
Some 16 million registered voters had been asked to choose their president, legislative and local representatives. Southerners also voted for the leader of their autonomous government.
Beshir was expected to easily win another term after the withdrawal of his key rivals, but legislative and local polls remained fiercely competitive in many parts of Africa’s biggest country.
Yasser Arman, the SPLM’s candidate for president before he pulled out, was at the meeting between Taha and Kiir despite having accused the NCP on Monday of preparing to rig elections in Blue Nile state on the north-south boundary.
The two sides also agreed to speed up the implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended a decades-long civil war between the north and south, particularly the border demarcation issue, Taha said.
The border issue is crucial ahead of a referendum scheduled for 2011 on southern independence.
The poll for president was marred by the withdrawal of Arman and another key Beshir challenger, the Umma Party’s Sadiq al-Mahdi, virtually assuring the veteran leader’s re-election.
The elections were also marred by logistical problems and delays including polling stations opening late or not at all, names misspelled or missing from registration lists and ballot boxes delivered to the wrong place.
—Agencies