Bashir: The only choice left in Sudan elections

“They feel they are not in a position to compete,” says Rabbie Abdelatti, the deputy minister for communications, and a senior member of Bashir’s NCP. “We are committed, and we will be very pleased whether the elections are positive or negative to us. We will accept the result of the referendum [to be held in 2011] whether it is unity with the South and North, or it is secession. We are fulfilling our agreement, not playing games.”

SPLM hard-liners like Pagan Amom, say that the NCP has done little to honor its signed commitments from the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which officially ended the north-south conflict in 2005.

“The NCP for the last five years have obstructed every action of the CPA,” Mr. Amom says in a phone interview. “The boundaries between the North and South have not been demarcated. The referendum rules have not been established. The boundaries of the [disputed area of] Abyei has not been demarcated, and even the wealth sharing reports [on oil revenues] are not credible.”

“There is not a little ground for trust here,” Amom says.

First election in a generation

Elections in developing countries are never easy, and especially so in a country like Sudan, where military coups are common, where the state controls all broadcast media, and where a generation has grown up without experiencing an election.

The Carter Center, an international election observer group led by former president Jimmy Carter, issued a report requesting a slight delay in elections to allow logistical problems like incomplete voter registration lists to be resolved. President Bashir hotly responded by threatening to throw out all foreign observer missions.

In Kadugli, the last major campaign rally was a month ago, when President Bashir came to speak at a rally well-attended by supporters. But since then, campaigning has largely stopped.

The SPLM here, as elsewhere, has boycotted the presidential elections. Parliamentary elections have been postponed for two months, in an agreement with the NCP and election officials. Campaign posters are few, although there is one attempt to win over southern non-Arab voters who make up the majority here. In one, Bashir is holding a spear, and wearing a flamboyant black feather tribal headdress and an even bigger grin.

“There has been total neglect of the Nubian communities,” says an international aid worker based in Kadugli, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There has been no integration of the armed groups, such as the SPLA [the armed wing of the SPLM]. So when the South votes to secede, many people here will want to separate, too. I’m afraid it may become another Darfur.”

'We do not have to lose hope'

In Khartoum, the capital, many young voters seem stunned that their first chance to vote may be meaningless.

Iman Al-Jack, a young teacher of Arabic language to foreign expatriates, says she was depressed to hear that the opposition parties were boycotting the elections, and she doesn’t know how she’ll vote.

“Before, I thought there might be a change, because there were some players who have some weight, but now that the biggest candidate is boycotting the election, it’s not going to change things,” she says. “This will just make the regime legitimate, which came to power through a coup.”

Yet while she admits that both of the main parties now seem bent on breaking up Sudan into two countries, she refuses to give up hope. “Youths are trying to say we want unity. The people who want separation have reasonable motives for their opinions, but we can still speak for unity. The politicians didn’t do enough to make unity in society. But it’s not too late. We do not have to lose hope.”

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