News Article by AFP posted on December 03, 2000 at 20:48:14: EST (-5 GMT)
Sudan's supreme court to examine lawsuit to call off elections
KHARTOUM, Dec 3 (AFP) - Sudan's supreme court will consider a
suit
filed by opposition lawyers against the elections watchdog
demanding this
month's general elections be called off, a court
member and a lawyer said
Sunday.
Opposition lawyer Ghazi Suleiman said the suit argues that the
General
Electoral Commission (GEC) "cannot conduct the forthcoming
elections in
absence of the parliament," which was dissolved a year
ago by President Omar
al-Beshir, because it answers to both the
government and parliament.
"It is a waterproof objection and the Constitutional Court has
to accept
it, otherwise it will harm its integrity and credibility,"
Suleiman said.
He said the constitution does not empower the president alone to
issue
provisional presidential decrees related to elections.
The supreme constitutional court's justice Ali Yahia said the
Court has
sent the GEC a copy of the suit presented by Suleiman and
other lawyers of
the opposition National Alliance for the
Restoration of Democracy (NARD).
The court will hear the GEC's reply to the suit presented by the
attorney
general in a hearing Wednesday.
The same court has also decided to study a case filed by another
lawyer
contesting the GEC's endorsement of President Omar al-Beshir
and former
president Jaafar Nimeiri as presidential candidates.
Lawyer Mahmud Shaarani complained that Beshir, as incumbent
president,
could order all state employees to vote for him, while
slamming Nimeiri's
nomination as a "provocative insult" to the
Sudanese people who rose in a
popular uprising and overthrew him in
1985.
Sudan's official SUNA news agency meanwhile reported that
11
representatives of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) will
arrive
in Khartoum on Tuesday to monitor the presidential and
legislative elections
set for December 11-20.