Sudan Heads to the Polls

Posted on Apr 10, 2010

Flickr / Pan-African News Wire File

A strong showing for the ruling party would boost President Omar al-Bashir’s political legitimacy and his defiance of the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court, which has charged him with war crimes over the atrocities in Darfur.

Sudan’s three-day election period begins Sunday, a contest that many see as deeply flawed. Several opposition parties have declined to participate and many of the country’s 2.5 million refugees are not registered to vote.

The sitting president, Omar al-Bashir, hopes to win and find legitimacy for an administration that is both domestically troubled as well as lacking in international support. Al-Bashir also stands accused of war crimes over the genocide in Darfur. —JCL

The Associated Press:

President Omar al-Bashir is pushing hard for a win in war-torn Darfur in Sudan’s key elections this weekend, hoping for a boost in his legitimacy in the face of international war crimes accusations. But he faces a hostile population in a vote observers say is deeply flawed.

Rebels in Darfur have urged a boycott of the three days of voting, which begins Sunday, and many among the 2.5 million refugees driven from their homes by years of war in the western region have not registered to vote. Several parties have pulled out of the race, complaining that al-Bashir’s government has skewed the contest.

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 in a war that was marked by atrocities by pro-government Arab militias against Darfur villagers.

The landmark elections taking place across Sudan were supposed to go toward healing that conflict — along with the separate north-south war that tore Africa’s largest nation apart for decades.

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