Voting Opens in Sudan, but Many Are Resigned to Bashir’s Re-election

Isma’il Kushkush, New York Times

13 April 2015

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Amid widespread public apathy and calls for a boycott from opposition groups, polling stations in Sudan opened Monday for an election that many believe is guaranteed to give President Omar Hassan al-Bashir another five years in office.

“It’s a comedy,” said Abdulhafeez Abdullah, 35, a law school graduate. “The president is certainly going to win.”

Mr. Abdullah has a big poster of Mr. Bashir in the back window of his minibus, but he said he was not going to vote.

“The poster just helps with traffic police,” he said.

The European Union has criticized the Sudanese government for holding elections during the country’s current violent conflicts and political unrest.

“The failure to initiate a genuine national dialogue one year after it was announced by the government of Sudan is a setback for the welfare of the people of Sudan,” Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said in a statement last week.

“When dialogue is bypassed, some groups are excluded and civil and political rights are infringed,” Ms. Mogherini said. “The upcoming elections cannot produce a credible result with legitimacy throughout the country.”

Last year, the government called for a national dialogue with opposition groups, but that has yet to materialize into an agreement.

Sudanese officials said that 13 million people were registered to vote in the three-day election. Voting was scheduled throughout the country except in some electorates in conflict zones in South Kordofan and Darfur. Results are to be announced on April 27.

Sixteen presidential candidates, including 10 independents, are running against Mr. Bashir, who has been in power for more than 25 years. Candidates from 44 political parties are running in national parliamentary and local legislative races.

Mr. Bashir won Sudan’s last elections, in 2010, a year before a referendum that resulted in the independence of South Sudan.

On Monday, a day the government declared a national holiday, voting was light in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital.

Mr. Bashir cast his vote, along with many government officials, early in the day at St. Francis School, a Catholic school here.

Police officers were bused to El-Deim, a working-class neighborhood, to cast their votes.

Of a total of 563 people registered to vote at an elementary school in the Imtidad Nasser neighborhood, only 27 had shown up by noon.

Abdullah Osman Mohamed, 58, cast his vote after finding his name on a list of registered voters. “It is my right to vote,” he said.

Mr. Mohamed, a supporter of the governing National Congress Party, said he believed the opposition was weak. “I think the opposition does not carry the weight to compete, and that is why they want to boycott.”

Late last year, Sudan’s opposition groups, including rebels, political parties and civil society organizations, signed a declaration known as the Sudan Call, uniting efforts to push for change in Sudan.

“The institutions overseeing this election are not independent,” said Bakri Youssef, a spokesman for the National Consensus Forces, an alliance of opposition political parties and a signatory of the Sudan Call.

“We have therefore called for a boycott of these elections,” Mr. Youssef said.

Government officials, however, say that having the elections, despite calls for a postponement, was necessary.

“The elections are a constitutional right,” Nafi Ali Nafi, a senior member of the ruling party, said at a news conference on Sunday. “The opposition then will come and say we are not constitutional.”

International observers from regional organizations including the African Union, the Arab League and others have teams to monitor the elections.

“So far it is very good and well organized,” said Immaculee Nahayo, head of an observation team from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.

The elections will not bring much change to the country, some analysts believe.

For the time being, the government is riding high on its improved regional profile and its relations with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, “and is expecting generous reward for its role in Decisive Storm,” said Magdi el-Gizouli, a fellow with the Rift Valley Institute, referring to the Saudi-led campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthi movement in Yemen.

“But continuation of the status quo,” Mr. Gizouli said, “only obfuscates the obvious: The country is ravaged by wars, displacement and the utter collapse of the rural economy.”

Featured Image: A woman cast her ballot on Monday at a polling station in Izba, an impoverished neighborhood on the outskirts of Khartoum, Sudan. Copyright: Mosa’Ab Elshamy/Associated Press

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