Huge question mark hangs over Sudan’s first democratic elections in 24 years

SUDAN’S first democratic elections in 24 years have been characterized by administrative chaos and large-scale confusion among voters who were keen to take part in the elections.

The elections, which were scheduled to be held from Sunday, 11 April to Tuesday, 13 April, has now been extended until Thursday because polling centres were not ready when voting began on Sunday.

The National Elections Commission (NEC) stuck to the original timetable despite calls by various candidates, political parties and the United Statesbased Carter Centre for a postponement.

The United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), who is providing logistical support, also expressed concern about the preparations for the elections. Polling was due to begin at 08:00 on Sunday morning, but no polling stations opened on time.

Even the incumbent President of the Government of Southern Sudan (Goss), Salva Kiir, had to wait several hours before he could cast his ballot.

There was wide-scale confusion as voters moved from one polling centre to the next on the first two days of voting – only to find that their names were not on any of the lists displayed at polling centres.

In Sudan it is a legal requirement to have four names (and all identity cards are only in Arabic) and when voters registered in November last year their first name, surname, father’s name and grandfather’s names were recorded in that order.

At polling stations, however, the names are displayed in reverse order and voters’ numbers are indicated randomly. Since the voters’ register was never published, as required by Sudan’s National Elections Act of 2008, voters also did not know at which polling centre they should vote.

As a result of the country’s high illiteracy rate, many voters were unable to search for their names and had to be assisted by electoral officials. Some voters visited as many as 11 polling stations, while many simply gave up after their first attempt.

Not surprisingly, turnout on the first day of the elections was extremely poor with as little as 150 out of 4 000 voters casting their votes at some polling stations. The turnout on Monday and Tuesday was, likewise, very poor and slowed down to three or four voters an hour at many polling stations on Tuesday.

Little voter education was done until less than two weeks before the scheduled start. The lists of candidates were never published ahead of the elections, neither was the list of polling stations – both stipulated in the National Elections Act.

The lack of voter education took a bizarre turn when the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) Presidential candidate for the semi-autonomous region of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir, placed his ballot papers in the wrong ballot boxes in the presence of the local and international media.

The elections are complicated by the fact that voters in the north of the country will cast their votes in eight different elections simultaneously, while those in the south will be participating in 12 separate elections.

With less than two weeks to go before the elections, the SPLM announced that it was withdrawing its candidate for the President of Sudan, Yasir Arman, from the race because of a host of irregularities.

The party also announced that it would not contest any of the elections in Darfur because of the insecurity in the region. Conducting an election in Sudan, Africa’s largest country, was never going to be an easy undertaking.

Poor infrastructure, especially in Southern Sudan, which was at war with the Muslim north for two decades until the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, created major logistical challenges to the National Elections Commission (NEC).

In addition, the timeframe for the entire election process (from the demarcation of constituencies to the final declaration of the results, originally scheduled for 16 April) was flawed from the start.

And if these challenges were not daunting enough, the country opted for what is possibly the most complicated voting system in the world, In the north, voters are voting in eight separate elections simultaneously, while voters in the south will have to mark no fewer than 12 ballot papers.

Elections for the President of Sudan and the President of the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) use the majoritarian system. This system requires the winning candidate to receive 50% of the vote plus one additional vote, while a relative majority is required for the election of the 25 Governors in the country.

Three ballots must be cast each of the following elections: the National Legislative Assembly (in the capital Khartoum), the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly (situated in Juba) and the State Legislative Assemblies.

Sixty percent of the seats in each of these assemblies are elected on a constituency basis, while 25% of the seats have been reserved for women and 15% for candidates on party lists.

Seats of candidates on the women’s list and the chaotic administration has thrown a question mark over the legitimacy of the elections and it is doubtful whether the extension would get more voters to the polls.

And to throw the elections in even more disarray, the first heavy rains of the rainy season started falling yesterday.