.Sudan sets date for election nominations
The Source: www.nation.co.ke - 28/12/2009
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Sudan has set a date for receiving its presidential and parliamentary nominations as the historic elections for the continent’s biggest country nears The National Election Commission at the weekend said it will receive the nominations for the executive and legislative bodies from January 12 to January 22.The oil-rich country is to hold the presidential and parliamentary polls from April 5 to April 12, 2010.A report from Sudanese Embassy in Nairobi said NEC chairman Abil Alier and other commission’s member announced the nomination dates at a press conference at NEC offices.
“Alier welcomed the role being played by the media to make a success the elections process, calling for continuity of the cooperation in the coming period, especially after the conclusion of the registration phase and starting of the nomination phase,” the report, said.The chairman of the NEC Technical Committee, Al-Hadi Mohamed Ahmed, pointed out that the nomination for the executive positions includes the election of the President of the Republic, the President of the Government of South Sudan and the Governors of the States, while the nomination for the legislative positions includes the membership of the legislative assemblies from the geographical constituencies, women, the Legislative Assembly of South Sudan and the States’ legislative assemblies.The elections were to mark an end of a transitional period which began when the decades-long Second Sudanese Civil War came to an end in early 2005.They were to be held from March to April 2009 but delayed due to problems with the preparation of the vote and with national census.About 69 parties have registered for the election.The Sudan census results were released in mid-May 2009 but was contested by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army which said Southern Sudanese are a third of Sudan’s total population while the census stated a much smaller number.It is unknown if the Darfurian amalgamation referendum, due to take place in July 2010, will be pulled back to match the general election.Observers believe opposition parties will have a difficult time to oust President Omar Bashir’s National Congress Party from power due to their divisions.The Sudan elections are a cornerstone of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of Sudan and the SPLM/A. Another is the Southern self-determination referendum, scheduled for 2011 at the end of the peace deal’s six-year interim period.Field Marshal Bashir’s government bowed to pressure from the South to open voter registration centres in three Sub-Saharan states previously left out by the country’s NEC. Sudanese nationals in the Diaspora were able to register from South Africa, Kenya and Uganda. Another centre was also opened in Malaysia bringing the countries identified by NEC for the exercise to 14.Some victors will be chosen under a first-past-the-post system, others by proportional representation. In a recent report, the Rift Valley Institute noted that the numerous elections and referendums held in Sudan since 1953 “have not so far produced the kind of stable yet dynamic government that the secret ballot is intended to encourage” largely because of “widespread and massive” fraud under authoritarian regimes and lack of necessary resources.While the report argued that elections should take place in Sudan, it warned of a “strong possibility that the forthcoming election will suffer from a combination of all the weaknesses that have undermined previous elections.President Bashir came into power through a coup in 1989 and has ruled the country with an iron fist
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