4 - 10 January 2001
Issue No.515
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 4 - 10 January 2001 Issue No.515 |
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Bashir sweeps uncontested poll
As expected, the incumbent Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and his ruling National Congress (NC) party won a landslide victory in the Sudanese general elections last week. However, the Sudanese government failed to draw a big enough turnout in the 10-day presidential and parliamentary poll to show that it had popular support. Sudanese officials claimed the turnout was low because polling was taking place during the Islamic holy fasting month of Ramadan. However, opposition groups claimed the Sudanese people had backed their call to boycott the elections.
The results of the presidential and parliamentary vote were scheduled to be announced on Monday 25 December, but were delayed and were promptly denounced by the main opposition parties. When the results were eventually announced on 29 December, it transpired that Al-Bashir received 86.5 per cent of the vote while his nearest rival, former Sudanese military ruler Jaafar Al-Numeiri, came a poor second with 9.6 per cent. Pro-government candidates also won 112 seats uncontested, and the ruling party, as expected, retained its majority in the 360-seat Sudanese Parliament. Leading Sudanese opposition figures were unimpressed, however.
"The re-election of Al-Bashir does not lend him any legitimacy. His victory was a foregone conclusion and the regime lacks any credibility at home and abroad. The elections were boycotted by the vast majority of Sudanese political parties and the government is clamping down hard on opposition forces in a desperate attempt to silence dissent," Farouk Abu Eissa, a member of the Sudanese opposition umbrella group, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Leadership Council, and NDA presidential adviser on legal, constitutional and human rights affairs, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "These are meaningless elections since the main political parties are not participating," Abu Eissa, who is also the head of the Cairo-based Arab Lawyers Union, said.
Nevertheless, a few other opposition leaders adopted a more conciliatory tone. "We shall continue to pursue our dialogue with the government," Umma Party leader Sadig Al-Mahdi said. "We have opted for a peaceful path to the resolution of the Sudanese crisis no matter what the results of the elections are. But we boycotted the elections and do not condone the government's course of action." Al-Mahdi's popularly-elected government was toppled in a military coup orchestrated by Al-Bashir.
Al-Bashir hopes the elections will fill the political vacuum he created a year ago when he dissolved parliament, dismissed Sudan's chief Islamist ideologist and former Speaker of the Sudanese Parliament Hassan Al-Turabi, and imposed a state of emergency. Al-Turabi now heads the opposition Islamist Popular National Congress (PNC). High-ranking PNC official Ibrahim Al-Sanousi dismissed the election as "a comedy" and a "distasteful joke."
Al-Turabi was equally dismissive of Al-Numeiri who, like several other independent parliamentary candidates, filed a complaint accusing the government of using public funds to ensure the success of its candidates, among other irregularities. Al-Numeiri made a good showing in parts of war-torn southern Sudan. Most observers, however, believe that Al-Numeiri, a former military dictator who was ousted in a 1985 popular uprising, remains unpopular, as do the three other presidential challengers, who are little known both inside Sudan and abroad.
However, the Organisation of African Unity, which sent an observers mission, said that the elections were free and fair and regretted that the opposition had refused to take part. The Arab League's approval was equally overwhelming. "The Sudanese people voted in a climate of freedom, impartiality, fairness and peace," an Arab League statement said, to the chagrin of the Sudanese opposition.
The civil war in the south of the country made it impossible to open polling stations in three of the 26 provinces of Sudan, where the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has fought for 18 years to institute a secular and democratic Sudan.
The main opposition parties, including the SPLA, which is part of the NDA and the leading military force opposing the government, boycotted the polls. They charged they could not be free and fair, and rejected statements by electoral officers that the turnout in some states was close to two thirds. The NDA contends that Al-Bashir's military-backed government must restore full political and press freedom and end the civil war before holding elections.
However, a relatively high turnout of 35 per cent was reported in the southern garrison towns of Wau, Malakal and Juba, where there was a choice between the ruling NC and the United Democratic Salvation Front, composed of southern factions which have signed a peace accord with Khartoum in 1997 and are virulently opposed to the SPLA. No voting took place in SPLA-held areas of the south.
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