Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir visits Cairo, Egypt following re-election

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir traveled to neighboring Egypt on Tuesday on his first trip abroad since his re-election was declared Monday.

His Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak, "congratulated the Sudanese president on his winning a new presidential term in elections," state news agency MENA reported. The Egyptian president hosted al-Bashir at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Mubarak said he was keen to achieve stability in his country's southern neighbor, where the semi-autonomous south is due to vote in an independence referendum next year, the agency said.

The Sudanese government has been engaged in Qatari-hosted peace talks with the most active rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement. The negotiations were suspended for the elections, but are due to resume next month.

Source: www.hurriyetdailynews.com

Al-Bashir also risks arrest outside of Sudan after an indictment by the International Criminal Court, or ICC, in 2009. His trip to Egypt was his second foreign visit since the ICC warrant was issued.

Source: www.hurriyetdailynews.com

Sudanese begins voting in Sudan's historic elections

By MOHAMED OSMAN, Associated Press Writer

KHARTOUM, Sudan – Sudanese across Africa's largest country voted Sunday in their first competitive elections in nearly a quarter century despite partial boycotts by the opposition and calls to delay the vote.

In Khartoum, turnout was lighter than expected in the first few hours of voting, aside from a few enthusiastic supporters of President Omar al-Bashir. Security was tight around polling stations and trucks loaded with uniformed security were deployed around the capital.

President Omar al-Bashir

Many of Sudan's 16 million registered voters, especially in the south where the war raged, have never experience competitive elections before.

"I have never voted in my life," South Sudan's President Salva Kiir said after casting his vote in a polling station in Juba, the southern capital. Kiir arrived exactly at opening time, but the voting station was not yet open and he had to wait outside for nearly an hour before he could cast his vote.

Kiir said he wished these elections laid the ground work for democracy in the country where military coups have been recurrent.

The elections, which will run through Tuesday, are an essential part of a 2005 peace deal that ended the north-south war that killed 2 million people over 21 years. They are designed to kick-start a democratic transformation in the war-plagued nation and provide a democratically elected government to prepare for a crucial southern referendum next year.

But two major political parties, including the southerners, decided to pull out fully or partially from the race, saying the process lacks credibility and was flawed from the start.

They called for a delay of the vote to address their concerns. The government refused.

Sudan's President al-Bashir, who came to power in a military coup in 1989, also cast his vote in Khartoum. It is the first time he is running for re-election in a multiparty race.

More than 800 international observers descended on Africa's largest country to observe the fairness of the contests, with the largest group from former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's organization. He toured polling stations in Khartoum at the start of the day.

"I think (opposition parties) want to see a peaceful transition and peace in this country, so I don't think there is any party that is threatening at all any disturbance or violence or intimidation of voters," he told reporters. "So we do expect and hopeful and believe there will be a peaceful election."

The opposition has made a series of complaints — that the National Election Commission is biased to the government, the ruling party has used state resources in the campaign, the number of polling stations nationwide was cut in half from 20,000, making it harder for those in remote villages to cast ballots.

"This is the first time that the party that carried out a coup organizes elections," said Sarah Nugdallah, the head of the political bureau of the Umma party, a major northern opposition group which is boycotting.

Some 16 million people will vote for over 14,000 candidates for everything from president to local councils. Experts said the elections are among the most complex in the world, where voters in the country's north have to cast eight ballots; while southerners cast a dozen votes. A hot line for voters has been set so they can inquire about where to cast their vote.

Voting took place amid heavy security and police have issued stern warnings that no disturbances will be tolerated on Election Day. Though the day is not a holiday, many shops in Khartoum were closed Sunday.

In the ravaged western Darfur region, rebels have called for a boycott of the election since a state of emergency exists and fighting continues.

Since 2003, this vast arid region has been the scene of a bloody conflict between the Arab-led government in Khartoum and ethnic African rebels. At least 300,000 have been killed and millions driven from their homes.

Election posters lined the few paved roads of the regional capital of al-Fasher, showing pictures of al-Bashir, the "strong and honest leader," and inciting voters to choose the "powerful party."

Essam Mohamed, a 28-year old resident of al-Fasher, said he is still waiting to see how peaceful the process is before going to cast his vote. He said mainly women, who are not working, have turned up to vote.

"It is still the beginning. Not a huge showing yet," he said. "I think these elections are important because we want to change local officials. But we are uncertain if that is possible. It is like a watermelon. We won't know until we open it."

In Khartoum, Amal Saleh, a housewife in her 30s, said she voted and expects al-Bashir's party to garner most of the votes.

"I spent no more than three minutes inside the center," she said. "I am not a ruling party member. But I think it will win...We know them better than others."

Associated Press Writer Sarah El Deeb in Cairo contributed to this report.

Source: Associated Press

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Sudan's Elections is a "Prearranged Elections" - Sham

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir

By Mia Farrow

 In Khartoum this past weekend, U.S. Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration expressed his confidence that the April 11 elections in that country-the first since 1986-will be as "free and fair as possible."

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir should be plastering "We Love Gration" posters all over Khartoum. No one in Sudan believes the elections will be anything approaching free or fair.

Intimidation, vote rigging, manipulation of the census, and bribing of tribal leaders are rampant. Most of the 2.7 million displaced Darfuris are living in refugee camps. They are unable or unwilling to be counted at all. All of this, plus the ongoing violence in Darfur, have caused key opposition candidates including Yassir Arman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement to withdraw from the election.

The Carter Center, the only international observer mission in Sudan, announced that the election process is "at risk on multiple fronts" and requested a modest delay of the election. Mr. Bashir threatened to oust the observers, saying on state TV last month: "if they interfere in our affairs, we will cut their fingers off, put them under our shoes and throw them out."

Taking an unusually edgy stance, the Save Darfur Coalition -- an alliance of more than 190 faith-based, advocacy and human-rights organizations -- is urging the U.S. and the international community not to legitimize Sudan's presidential election. "We believe the election is not going to be free and fair, and it's not even going to be credible," said Robert Lawrence, the Coalition's director of policy. "The last thing we want is for the results to legitimize the dictatorial rule of President al-Bashir."

Hope is rare in Darfur, but when Barack Obama became president the refugees had reason to be hopeful. As a junior senator in 2006, Mr. Obama made his feelings about Darfur quite clear. "Today we know what is right, and today we know what is wrong. The slaughter of innocents is wrong. Two million people driven from their homes is wrong. Women gang raped while gathering firewood is wrong. And silence, acquiescence and paralysis in the face of genocide is wrong."

A year later, then-candidate Barack Obama said: "When you see a genocide, whether it's in Rwanda or Bosnia or in Darfur, that's a stain on all of us. That's a stain on our souls."

Darfuris were listening, and they hoped anew when President Obama said the Sudanese regime "offended the standards of our common humanity." They believed he would appoint an envoy who would take their plight seriously and serve as an honest broker between warring rebel groups and the Sudanese regime.

And how is his appointed envoy dealing with the perpetrators of those atrocities that have stained our souls? "We've got to think about giving out cookies," Mr. Gration told the Washington Post last fall. "Kids, countries-they react to gold stars, smiley faces..."

Cookies for a regime that is as savvy as it is cruel? Smiley faces for a thug who seized power by coup in 1989 and has retained it only through iron-fisted brutality? Gold stars for an indicted war criminal responsible for the murder, rape and displacement of millions?

This spectacularly naïve perspective-and accompanying policy of appeasement-has further terrified Darfur's refugees, who feel increasingly abandoned by the U.S. and marginalized within their country.

With the support of Mr. Gration and the U.S., the bogus Sudanese elections will move forward with what the International Crisis Group has labeled "catastrophic consequences."

"Since the April vote will impose illegitimate officials through rigged polls, Darfuris will be left with little or no hope of a peaceful change in the status quo," warns EJ Hogendoorn, the Crisis Group's Horn of Africa project director. "Instead many will look to rebel groups to fight and win back their lost rights and lands."

Following this Sunday's election, there is little doubt as to who will be the president of Sudan. So it is crucial that international observers, world governments, the African Union and the U.N. Security Council acknowledge the deeply corrupt voting process that will reinstate President Omar al-Bashir. They should declare publicly that Mr. Bashir, a man indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, will rule without a genuine democratic mandate.

His regime must not be granted the legitimacy he craves.

Source: Huffinton post

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Sudan’s Multi-Party Elections produce Only One Winner

 President Omar-al Bashir

Rob Crilly

Journalist and Darfur author

The country's first multi-party elections in more than 20 years have produced a bewildering array of candidates running for parliament, president, regional assemblies and state governorships. The contest in Africa's biggest country has produced, perhaps fittingly, what must be the continent's biggest ballot papers.

But if the voting procedure is bewilderingly complex then it is already clear that the result will be straightforward: A crushing win for President Omar-al Bashir, Africa's most wanted man.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

A year ago Bashir's unofficial pariah status was formalised by the International Criminal Court, which indicted him on seven charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in Darfur. More than two million people are still living in squalid aid camps where they have clung on to life after being bombed and burned from their homes by Bashir's army and air force, or his allies among the Janjaweed - the mounted Arab militias.

Yet the past year has seen Bashir strengthen his grip on power. Minutes after judges in the Hague issued an arrest warrant, the Sudanese president responded by ordering the expulsion of 13 international aid agencies. Western governments and the United Nations cried foul but did nothing as the Sudanese authorities seized millions of pounds of cars, computers and satellite telephones - much of it paid for by international donors.

This year his troops have begun a fresh offensive in the Jebel Mara mountains, displacing tens of thousands more civilians as they battle rebels of the Sudan Liberation Army. Another rebel movement has been taken out of the equation, mired in cynical peace talks that lurch from stop to start and back again in Qatar.

And all the while, his henchmen have quietly been making sure that there can be only one winner in the four-day election that starts on Sunday. As the International Crisis Group pointed out in a report last week, the registration process has been skewed to favour supporters of the president's National Congress Party. At the same time, plans to have ballot papers printed outside Sudan have been abandoned, making it easier for blanks to fall into the wrong hands and for ballot boxes to be stuffed with bogus votes.

That's not good enough for most of Sudan's opposition leaders, some of whom have given up and withdrawn from the vote, wary of lending credibility to such a badly flawed process. The one challenger who could have pushed Bashir to a second round is among them. Yassir Arman, of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the former Southern rebel army, was the one candidate who might have had the clout to attract the support of other opposition groups and give the president a fright.

His decision though is clouded in mystery. Was it really because of shortcomings in the electoral process, or has a deal been hatched to hand the election to Bashir in return for a guarantee that Khartoum will not interfere in an independence referendum in the South next year?

The questions all leave the United Nations and donor governments, who are underwriting peace, in a bit of a pickle.

On the one hand, elections are a crucial step along a map laid down by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended the long running conflict in Southern Sudan. Sudan-wide elections this year are to be followed by that referendum in the South next January. There, voters will be deciding whether their future lies in an independent state, free from Bashir's Islamist-leaning Khartoum government. So if next week's elections fail, the bigger prize of peace and stability in the South, a land racked by hunger, disease and insecurity, could well be lost. Multi-party elections - flawed though they may be - are a step towards a more democratic Sudan and a final resolution of a 20-year war.

On the other hand, the biggest winner is looking like Bashir himself, a man who seized power in a coup and who will use a stolen election to cement his position possibly with a fresh wave of oppression. As an elected leader, he will have a defence against arrest by the International Criminal Court and the confidence to perhaps pursue the conflict in Darfur to its bloody end.

The choice is not a nice one: Cry "foul" and watch a five-year-old peace in the South collapse, sparking a fresh wave of death; or cry "fair" and watch Bashir emerge with a rigged mandate and the knowledge that once again he has outfoxed his opponents.

As so often in Africa, where wars tend to linger without resolution and power shifts from one big man to the next, it is the ordinary, voiceless Sudanese who will suffer. And once again, Western diplomats will try to talk about difficult choices and slow progress towards democracy as if they haven't just been made to look stupid by Africa's most wanted man.

Rob Crilly is the author of Saving Darfur, Everyone's Favourite African War:

Source: Huffinton post

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• http://www.ifeyinka.com/2010/04/sudanese-begin-voting-in-sudans.html