News Article by PANA posted on December 14, 2000 at 02:12:44: EST (-5 GMT)
Low Turnout On First Election Day
Panafrican News Agency
December 13, 2000
Yahya el Hassan
Khartoum
Low turnout Wednesday characterised the first election day throughout
the
greater Khartoum.
Some 12 million voters are expected to elect a new president as well
a new
parliament for the country during 13-23 December electoral
period.
At Haj Yousif eastern suburb of Khartoum the few voters wishing to
cast
their ballots had to wait until noon for the election officers to show
up.
Omar Mohammed el Hassan, an official of the General Election
Authority,
said the low turnout on the first day was not a sign of the
election's
failure.
"We expect a high turnout in the coming 10 days as the
balloting
continues," he told PANA.
But El Daw Balla Zarroug, who represents presidential candidate
Malik
Hussein, attributed the low turnout to the inability of candidates
other than
incumbent Omar Bashir to obtain the voters register.
"A candidate has to pay 6 million dinars in order to obtain the
voters
register countrywide. Who can pay that except Omar el
Bashir,"
Zarroug told a press conference Wednesday.
He said if they were able to obtain the copies they wanted from
the
voters' register, they could mobilise the voters they know to go to
the
polls.
Zarroug has also attributed the turnout to the brief period of 10
days
given to the candidates to campaign.
"Ten days is not enough in such a vast country as Sudan," he said.
"We are competing against an incumbent president who has all the
official
media at his disposal while all the other four candidates were
each given
just a few minutes on the radio and TV," Zarroug
complained.
Presidential candidate Hussein is a veteran politician who had served
as
adviser to former President Ga'afar Nimeri for Southern Sudan
Affairs
(1984-85).
He is known for his strong links to Hassan el Turabi, the ousted
speaker
of parliament.
Hussein said he would strive to fight poverty and
environmental
degradation if elected.
Nimeri, who ruled the country during 1969-1985, does not seem to
have
changed many of his autocratic beliefs.
In a recent interview, he said if elected he would dissolve the Umma
Party
and the Democratic Unionist Party or DUP, the country's biggest
political
organisations with proven wide following since the country's
independence
from Britain in 1956.
In the last free elections of 1986, they together obtained 85 percent
of
the votes and formed the coalition government of Sadik el Mahdi.
President Bashir, whose pictures now cover most of Khartoum's
streets,
said he would keep his search for a peaceful solution for the
civil war in
the South if he is returned to the throne.
He said he would also pay more attention to education and health.
The fourth candidate, Mahmoud Jiha, a businessmen, said the first
thing he
would do if elected president will be to dissolve the parliament
now being
elected and call for new elections in which all the political
parties will
participate freely.
He said his priority would be national reconciliation and true
democracy.
The fifth candidate, businessman Samaw'al Hussein Osman Mansour,
said he
will remove poverty by dropping all fees and taxes the public
pays for basic
services and commodities.
"I swear to the name of Allah, that if elected, I will restore free
medical
care and free education," he said in a paid advert in the local
press.
In a TV interview, Mansour said he would reach a peace deal with the
SPLA
in no time. Asked how could he do so, he said that is a secret
he will not
reveal now.
His opponents in the National Congress concluded that the man was
thinking
about the cancellation of Islamic Sharia law, a major pursuit of
the SPLA.
Mansour has also tickled the feelings of young people by his call for
the
abolition of compulsory military service.
The general feeling among the Sudanese is that the elections are a
waste
of time.
The was because, they said, the most influential political organisations
-
the Umma, the DUP, the Popular National Congress of Hsasan
Turabi and the
Communist Party - have all boycotted the exercise on
the grounds that the
state of emergency and other freedom-restricting
laws would not permit a true
expression of opinion.
This passive attitude of the opposition parties was reflected in
the
results of the parliamentary elections where the ruling
National
Congress candidates went uncontested in 100 out of
270
constituencies.
They won unopposed in what has been termed "silent consensus," a
new
expression in Sudanese politics.
In many cases two or more candidates of the National Congress
are
competing against each other in a constituency, another indication
of
absence of opposition.