News Article by DPA posted on December 15, 2000 at 07:51:17: EST (-5 GMT)
Sudan election authority wants special courts to curtail rigging
Khartoum (dpa) - The General Election Authority (GEA) has
requested
the attorney general to set up special offices to study complaints
of
rigging in the presidential and parliamentary elections which
began
last Wednesday.
In a statement published Friday the GEA also asked the chief
justice to
create special courts to try cases of rigging.
The attorney general and the chief justice are expected to reply to
the
GEA on Saturday.
The GEA chairman, Abdel Monein Zein al-Nahas, said the commonest
complaint
was against senior government members who were using their
offices and
government resources in favour of the ruling National
Congress candidates at
the expense of the other candidates.
The opposition parties have also been claiming that the election
officers
were not neutral. One agent said he had caught one person
voting twice with
the knowledge of the election officials.
Another complaint coming from outside the capital is about
the
disappearance of some electoral rolls while on their way to
states
from Khartoum.
Al-Nahas said that any person proved by a court to have rigged
the
elections would be sentenced to between one and two years in prison
or
fined or sentenced to both imprisonment and a fine.
The election chief regretted the absence of agents of the
presidential
candidates at the polling centres.