THE US envoy to Sudan began crisis talks in Khartoum yesterday, after the withdrawal of one of the main presidential candidates cast doubt on the credibility of upcoming elections.
According to officials, Scott Gration will meet leaders of the government and the opposition in a bid to salvage the country’s first free elections in 24 years.
Yasir Arman, the candidate for the south’s dominant Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) pulled out of the race on Wednesday night, less than two weeks before voting is set to take place. Citing concerns over election fraud and insecurity in Darfur, Mr Arman said it was “impossible” to hold an election in Darfur and that the whole process was “rigged”.
“The people of Darfur in the internally displaced people’s camps asked the SPLM not to be involved in the election,” he said. “Our response to the people of Darfur’s political bureau is that we have decided not to run.”
However, the SPLM said it would contest the April 11th-13th parliamentary and municipal elections in the rest of Sudan.
The move came as more than a dozen northern opposition and independent candidates met to consider a boycott of the election, as election observers warned that the eventual winner of the election would lack credibility.
According to Human Rights Watch, the Sudanese government’s repression of its opponents and the media was threatening the chances of the elections being “free, fair and credible”.
On Wednesday, a joint statement by the US, Britain and Norway said they were “deeply concerned by reports of continued administrative and logistical [electoral] challenges, as well as restrictions on political freedoms”. But, they said, “irrespective of the outcome of elections”, it was essential the January 2011 referendum go ahead as planned.
The presidential and parliamentary elections are part of a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war between Sudan’s Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south. Under the agreement, southern Sudan obtained the right to hold a referendum in January 2011 on whether to break away from the north. However, Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir has said that if the SPLM fails to participate in April’s elections, the referendum will not go ahead.
More than two million people died in the civil war, while another 300,000 have been killed in violence in Darfur. Last year the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Mr Bashir for war crimes.