KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) – Confusion, delays and charges of fraud marked the start of Sudan’s first multi-party elections in a quarter-century, a vote that will test the fragile unity of Africa’s biggest country.
The three-day election could also show whether Sudan can avoid more conflict and humanitarian crises as it heads toward a 2011 referendum on independence for the oil-producing south.
The results are widely expected to keep Sudan’s two most influential men in power: President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for allegedly planning war crimes in the western Darfur region, and Silva Kiir, who leads largely autonomous south Sudan.
Across the country, there were long queues and chaotic scenes outside polling centres. Kiir was forced to wait 20 minutes under a tree for his polling station to open in the southern capital Juba and then spoiled his first ballot by putting it in the wrong box.
Would-be voters lined up in the morning in Khartoum, where police were out in force on unusually quiet streets. Many voters were hindered by delays in getting ballots to polling stations, ballot mix-ups and names missing from the electoral roll.
But by yesterday afternoon, no major unrest was reported as people voted to choose a national president, a leader of south Sudan, national and local parliaments, and governors of all but one of the country’s 25 states.
Yet the elections’ credibility was undermined even before voting started, as leading opposition parties pulled out candidates and blamed the government for widespread vote-rigging and intimidation. Election officials, trying to plan a complex election for the first time in a generation, denied the charges.
