KHARTOUM - Election observers expressed
concern on Tuesday over the harassment of political parties and
funding delays as voters began to register for Sudan's first
multi-party elections in 24 years.
The Carter Centre, which with the United Nations is
providing the only international observers for the vote due next
April, said its monitors had faced restrictions and many had not
been given accreditation to start their work.
"Sudan's National Election Commission (NEC) must act
immediately to accredit national and international observers as
well as political party agents, and lift restrictions on
observers' freedom of movement," the centre, founded by former
U.S. President Jimmy Carter, said in a statement.
Sudanese newspapers have commented on the low turn-out since
registration began on Sunday, saying many people did not know
that the process had started or where to go to register.
The former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement
(SPLM) said it was concerned there was confusion in registering
in the south, and that some centres were not open yet.
"If things go like the way they are going now, I believe
less than 10 percent of the total (southern) population will be
registered," said senior SPLM official Anne Itto.
Parliamentary, presidential and state-level elections are
due in April 2010, followed by a southern referendum on
independence in January 2011, both part of a 2005 north-south
peace accord that ended two decades of civil war.
Even as the electoral process began on Sunday, doubts
remained over whether the election would go ahead beause of a
threatened boycott by the SPLM and opposition parties unless a
package of democratic laws are passed.
These include bills guiding referendums on secession for the
south and the oil-rich Abyei region and on reform of the
intelligence services.
The SPLM and the north's dominant National Congress Party
(NCP) are also in dispute over the results of a census which
should be the basis for electoral constituencies.
"Unless we reach an agreement in the next two or three
weeks, it will be very difficult to arrange for the elections,"
said NCP official Amin Hassan Omer.
U.S. envoy Scott Gration, who has shuttled between the two
sides to break the deadlock, said he hoped to see some "positive
trends" in the next few days.