News Article by AFP posted on November 09, 2000 at 08:13:59: EST (-5 GMT)
Sudan's elections face further boycott calls
KHARTOUM, Nov 9 (AFP) - Another Sudanese political party said
Thursday
it will boycott presidential and parliamentary elections
here next month,
calling them a ploy to maintain Islamist rule over
the multi-religious
nation.
The Union of Sudan African Parties (USAP), a non-separatist
group of elite
members of southern tribes, urged its supporters and
other Sudanese to
"boycott these elections and dissociate themselves
from their outcome."
In a press release, it accused the government of using the
elections to
create a situation which "will give the NIF (National
Islamic Front) an
extended hegemony over power in the country."
The NIF backed the military coup in 1989 that brought President
Omar
al-Beshir to power, overthrowing the democratically elected
prime minister
Sadeq al-Mahdi.
Simultaneous legislative and presidential elections are to be
held on
December 11-20.
USAP said that ending a 17-year civil war -- in which the
Islamist-led
government here has been fighting rebels representing
the mainly Christian
and animist south but also northern Muslim
opposition groups -- "is a
priority that should precede elections."
The government's insistence on
holding presidential elections
even before Beshir's term ends in April shows
"it lacks seriousness
about the political reconciliation it claims to
champion," USAP
said.
It added that it is opposed to partial elections for southern
Sudan due to
the ongoing war there, saying vacant seats would be
filled by "handpicked
southern members of the ruling party", the
National Congress.
"USAP does not recognise the present constitution and the
related
political parties act and other laws because, like other
political forces, it
has not participated in their promulgation and
enactment," the press release
said.
Boycott calls have also been issued by other opposition groups,
such as
Mahdi's Umma Party and Hassan al-Turabi's Popular National
Congress, and the
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Mohammed Osman
al-Mirghani.
The DUP is part of the National Democratic Alliance, which
groups the
northern and southern opposition, while the Popular
National Congress broke
away from the National Congress amid a power
struggle between Turabi and
Beshir.
The NDA announced Thursday from Eritrea that its forces had
captured
Sudan's eastern provincial capital of Kassala, but the
government said its
forces had driven them out of the city.