Sudan heads to the polls on Sunday for the first multiparty elections in more than two decades, with President Omar al-Bashir scrambling to maintain credibility after an opposition boycott.
Al-Bashir has led Africa’s largest country since coming to power in a military coup on June 30 1989, backed by Islamists.
He faces his first electoral test on Sunday, in the first multiparty presidential, legislative and local elections since 1986.
The Sudanese leader, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur, has looked to popular support to defy the ICC mandate.
“These elections are big show for al-Bashir against the ICC; it’s a one-man show,” Yasser Arman, who was the former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement presidential candidate, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Initially, the presidential election was seen as a tight race, prompting former United Sates president-turned-election-watcher Jimmy Carter to predict that a second round of voting was likely.
But Arman pulled out of the race, and along with the tentative position of the other key candidate, Sadiq al-Mahdi, little suspense remains and al-Bashir looks to secure a comfortable win.
“The withdrawal of Yasser Arman gives al-Bashir a victory,” prominent Sudanese analyst Haydar Ibrahim told AFP.
Even if al-Bashir wins, the international community could still refuse to recognise the result.
Opposition groups and former southern rebels have partly boycotted the vote, accusing al-Bashir of preparing to rig the elections.
“The legal environment for free and fair elections does not exist,” Fouad Hikmat, the International Crisis Group’s special adviser for Sudan, said in a statement from the Brussels-based think-tank.
“The international community should acknowledge that whoever wins will lack legitimacy.”
The credibility of the election has been thrown into doubt after the former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) widened its boycott to include the northern states.
The movement said it would still field candidates in the sensitive border states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, where the party enjoys support.
Well-organised campaign
Pagan Amum, the SPLM secretary general, lashed out at al-Bashir’s National Congress Party, accusing it of intimidation.
Then on Wednesday, the opposition Umma party announced it would be boycotting the election, saying the government had ignored its call for key reforms.
The Sudanese leader had warned that if observers “intervene in our affairs, then we will cut off their fingers and crush them under our shoes”.
Later softening his approach, al-Bashir said he would grant Carter and his election observers unlimited access in the country.
But on Wednesday, European Union election monitors, citing security concerns, said they would not be monitoring elections in the war-torn region of Darfur.
Al-Bashir has waged a well-organised campaign, eclipsing the opposition parties who have been wavering over whether to participate in the elections and at what level.
The Sudanese leader, who focused his campaign on economic development and the fight against the West, has taken his rallies to the south, east and north of the country and even to Darfur in the west, where a civil war has raged since 2003.
“The great weakness of the Sudanese opposition is that it can’t agree on a name that it would support to challenge al-Bashir. If it had a name, any name … al-Bashir would be rattled,” said Sudan expert Roland Marchal.
As well as the presidential election, the Sudanese will vote from Sunday to Tuesday for their representatives in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, as well as for state governors and representatives at the local level.
But the stakes remain high in Sudan’s legislative elections, where results can be swayed by loyalties to family, tribe or religious affiliation. — AFP