KHARTOUM, April 11 Sudan set for historic vote, security tight
KHARTOUM, April 11 (Reuters)- Sudan holds historic multi-
party elections on Sunday that have been marred already by
fraud allegations and will test the fragile unity of a nation divided
by decades of civil conflict.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir will deploy 100,000 police
across northern Sudan to guard polling stations and ward off
unrest during three days of voting to choose a president, a
head of the semi-autonomous south,
parliaments and local leaders.
Bashir, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court
for allegedly planning war crimes in the western Darfur region, seems
certain to win another four-year term after leading opposition parties
pulled out of the race.
"We know that there are no perfect elections, and these polls will not be an
exception to that rule," said Abdallah Ahmed Abdallah, a top official at
Sudan's electoral commission.
"These elections will not suddenly transform Sudan into a democratic
society. That will take time and experience."
Yet opposition groups and activists say even such modest expectations will
go unmet as they put forward myriad complaints of vote-rigging and other
misdeeds, fuelling doubts about the credibility of Sudan's first multi-party
polls in 24 years.
It also raises questions about whether the vote will help or hurt Sudan as
it seeks to end years of multiple civil conflicts.
"All that is left is the announcement of (Bashir's) victory, which will be
the grave of democratic transformation with the support and the
participation of the international and regional community," Sudanese civil
society group Democracy First said in a statement.
If the polls are seen as illegitimate, it may bode poorly for plans to hold
a 2011 referendum on independence for southern Sudan. If next year's vote
does not take place, the south may secede anyway.
EXODUS
Streets of the capital Khartoum were unusually quiet, possibly because
pre-election tensions may have eased with expectations of a victory for
Bashir, who took power in a 1989 coup.
The risk of unrest is greater in western Darfur, where the United Nations
estimates 300,000 people have died since 2003 in a humanitarian crisis that
Washington has labelled genocide.
There, aid groups moved international and Sudanese staff out of remote areas
to the region's three state capitals.
"We're not expecting widespread violence, only things that might blow up in
pockets," an aid official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"Everyone is prepared to hibernate if there is any trouble ... People have
stocked up their houses with food and water."
Some aid agencies said they moved their staff from other remote areas, like
South Kordofan and parts of southern Sudan, where any emergency evacuations
would be hampered by poor roads.
According to an internal U.N. memo seen by Reuters, U.N. staff were advised
to avoid large gatherings and refrain from field missions during the voting
period.
Some of the thousands of Kenyan and Ugandan workers living in Juba, the
capital of southern Sudan, paid double the normal ticket price to board
buses to leave town.
In Khartoum, bus companies added vehicles as a huge number of residents
poured out of the city, some of them fearing possible election reprisals and
others simply happy to take advantage of the three-day election to visit
home villages.
"I was scared, but now that these (opposition) guys have withdrawn there's
no competition with Bashir," said Khartoum housewife Atouma Hassan.
"So now I'm just waiting for them to announce there's a holiday."
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