Monitors worried about Sudan election, freedoms

Tue, Nov 3 06:10 PM

Enlarge Photo Sudanese officials show registration kits at the Elections High Committee compound in Khartoum November 1,...

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, who along with the United Nations are 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, with many people unaware the process had started or where to go to register.

Parliamentary, presidential and state-level elections are due in April next year 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 process began on Sunday, the election was thrown into doubt when the SPLM and opposition parties threatened a boycott unless a package of democratic laws are passed.

Outstanding laws include bills guiding referenda on secession for the south and the oil-rich Abyei region and reform of the intelligence services.

Relations between the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the north's dominant National Congress Party (NCP) are low with a deadlock on 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 then it will be very difficult to arrange for the elections," NCP official Amin Hassan Omer said.

U.S. envoy Scott Gration, who has shuttled from one side to the other to break the dispute, said he hoped to see some "positive trends" in the next few days.

(Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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