AFRICA/SUDAN - Preparing for Sudanese elections: the largest Northern opposition party announces boycott and former rebels only run in the South

Khartoum (Agenzia Fides) – The dates for presidential, parliamentary, and regional elections in Sudan (11-13 April) are approaching and several opposition parties are declaring a boycott on the elections. Yesterday, April 7, the Umma Party, the largest opposition party in Northern Sudan, announced a boycott of elections on all levels, national and regional. According to a press party, the decision of the boycott stems from the lack of adequate safeguards to ensure the proper conduct of elections. The Umma Party asked the National Electoral Committee for guarantees to ensure the neutrality of the media and free access by all parties to the media. It also requested government funding for the campaign of the various political parties and the prohibition of non-controlled media and government resources for all parties, a system for monitoring and regulating campaign finance, which shall not exceed, the Umma Party says, a certain limit.
Two other opposition parties have announced a total boycott of the elections, the Umma Reform and Renewal Party and the Communist Party.
The largest party in Southern Sudan, the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM, the former rebels) instead chose to enter the race in the southern regions, where it controls the autonomous administration created by the Inclusive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in Nairobi in 2005, which ended the civil war in the South.
The SPLM has withdrawn its candidate for president, a decision that several commentators considered preparatory to the planned secession of Southern Sudan, gathering from the more than likely victory of supporters of southern independence in the referendum in 2011, which is also called for in the peace agreement.
In Darfur, the western region of the country, which since 2003 has been the scene of a civil war (though in recent months there have been some partial peace agreements), the European Union Election Observation Mission deployed to monitor elections has left the region due to the "impossibility" of carrying out their work in a climate of civil war, as one spokesman explained. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 8/4/2010)