Sudanese president and northern ruling party ahead in early election results

Sudanese president ahead in early election results

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Counting in Sudan’s first multiparty presidential and local elections in decades began Friday as early results showed the incumbent president ahead in voting that was marred by delays, faulty registration and boycotts.

Omar al-Bashir is widely expected to win another five years in office, but a string of troubles in the voting process — including the withdrawal of his most credible challengers and allegations of fraud from opposition groups and observers — could raise questions of the legitimacy of an al-Bashir win.

Early results confirmed the incumbent president won most of the votes already counted by the National Elections Commission. Tallies from a few districts in Sudan and abroad showed him garnering between 88 percent and 94 percent of votes counted. Final results are expected Tuesday.

The five-day vote, which ended Thursday and also included local and national parliamentary elections, was a key requirement of a 2005 peace deal which ended a 21-year civil war between the country’s north and south that ravaged the southern half of the country and left 2 million people dead and many more displaced.

The vote was intended to produce a democratically elected government for the impoverished country and pave the way for a referendum next year on independence for southern Sudan.

But international observers, local monitors and opposition leaders said the voting process was heavily controlled by al-Bashir’s ruling party. Local observers said they fear election results could spark violence.

Only one violent incident was reported during the vote, when soldiers from the semiautonomous south killed at least five supporters of al-Bashir’s National Congress Party in the southern province of Western Bahr al-Ghazal on Thursday.

The elections were considered competitive on the local and parliamentary levels as over 70 parties and independents competed for the first time for places in local governments across the country.

The vote, which was twice delayed, is seen by al-Bashir as a chance to reaffirm his political legitimacy in the face of an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes committed in Darfur.

The conflict in the western region of Darfur broke out in 2003 between government forces and rebel groups. An estimated 300,000 people died of violence, disease and displacement in the conflict, which is separate from the north-south civil war.

The elections are also expected to keep the south’s largest party, the Sudan’s People Liberation Army, a junior member of the national government, in power in the south because it remains the most organized political force there.

The SPLM boycotted the elections in the north, but is keen to see the vote accepted to ensure the 2011 referendum on southern secession proceeds as planned. Al-Bashir had threatened the referendum could be derailed if elections didn’t go ahead on time.

Despite criticism of the vote from some observers, the head of the Arab League’s monitors in Sudan, Salah Halima, called the elections “a model” of transparency and fairness. He told the state news agency SUNA the vote “ended successfully and smoothly.”

There are nearly 800 international monitors in Sudan for the elections, including a team led by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

Associated Press Writer Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report from Cairo.