Saturday 17 April 2010<\/abbr><\/small><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sudantribune.com\/local\/cache-vignettes\/L360xH230\/Bashircar-83a7e.jpg\")
The National Elections Commission (NEC) has started counting votes since the polls officially closed on Thursday in Sudan\u2019s first multi-party elections since 1986. However, this election has been marred by opposition boycott and technical issues that have undermined its credibility in the eyes of the observers.<\/p>\n
In the presidential race, the NCP leader and incumbent president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir maintained a comfortable lead over his rivals scoring no less than 85% in the districts announced so far by NEC including foreign posts with Sudanese expatriates voting abroad.<\/p>\n
But the race was expected to be an easy one for Bashir after his main challengers, the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) candidate Yasir Arman and the ex-PM Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi who is the Umma party chief withdrew from the race.<\/p>\n
By contrast, the legislative and gubernatorial elections in the North were expected to witness a stiff competition between parties some of which are relying on a religious followers base such as the Unionist Party (DUP) whose leader Mohamed Osman Al-Mirghani is also the head of the Al-Khatmiya religious sect.<\/p>\n
DUP and few other parties that did not boycott the elections revealed unfavorable preliminary results as reported to them by their monitors.<\/p>\n
“Everything is totally corrupt. We are fed up and we will never recognize these elections,” the DUP\u2019s Salah al-Basha told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Prior to the vote, he said the party was sure to win the governorships of at least six states. Friday he said it looked to have won none.<\/p>\n
Another opposition source told Sudan Tribune that the Popular Congress Party (PCP) led by Islamist figure Hassan Al-Turabi had suffered a “staggering” defeat in the elections<\/p>\n
This week the NCP senior figure Ghazi Salah Al-Deen Al-Attabani has offered all opposition parties to join the new government even if they boycotted the elections saying the country needs consensus ahead of the 2011 referendum in South Sudan.<\/p>\n
However Bashir dismissed his aide\u2019s remarks saying the post-election government will consist primarily of those parties that did not boycott.<\/p>\n
The Sudanese president in an interview with the independent Al-Akhbar newspaper questioned the wisdom of elections and competition if all parties were going to be part of the national government without regard to the outcome produced by the election.<\/p>\n
He said that it is best for the country to have a strong government that enjoys a degree of coherence and harmony that reflects parliamentary and also to have a strong and responsible opposition exercising its oversight role on government performance.<\/p>\n
(ST)<\/p>\n
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Observers Criticize\u00a0Sudanese Elections \ufeff@@@ Sudan: Genocidaire set to remain president Daily Caller A generation has been born and raised the world over since\u00a0Sudan\u00a0held elections. This week, the people of this war-torn country voted.\u00a0.. Sudan\u00a0bishop raises concerns of foul play during elections Detention of election observers in South\u00a0Sudan condemned Sudan elections highlight north-south divide – Los […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[207,154,155,226,234],"tags":[247,246],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethiopianism.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}