President of Sudan Is Re-elected With 94 Percent of Vote
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Version 0 of 1. KHARTOUM, Sudan — President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan, the country’s longtime leader, was declared re-elected on Monday, winning 94 percent of the vote in balloting that was boycotted by opposition groups and marred by low turnout and public apathy. Mukhtar al-Asam, head of the Sudanese Elections Committee, said that 46 percent of eligible voters across the country had cast presidential ballots in four days of voting that began April 13, and that the turnout was lowest in the capital, Khartoum, and its surroundings, at just 34 percent. “The elections were useless,” said Mouyaser Hasan, 26, an engineer in Khartoum who said he did not vote. Fifteen largely unknown candidates ran for the presidency against Mr. Bashir, Sudan’s leader for the last 25 years, and the only sitting head of state under indictment for genocide and war crimes by the International Criminal Court. Forty-four political parties contested seats in local legislatures and the National Assembly, where the ruling National Congress Party won 323 of the 426 seats. Western governments had criticized Mr. Bashir’s administration for holding the elections at this time. The United States, Britain and Norway said in a joint statement last week that the Sudanese government had failed “to create a free, fair and conducive elections environment.” “Restrictions on political rights and freedoms, counter to the rights enshrined in the Sudanese Constitution, the lack of a credible national dialogue and the continuation of armed conflict in Sudan’s peripheries are among the reasons for the reported low participation and very low voter turnout,” the statement said. “The outcome of these elections cannot be considered a credible expression of the will of the Sudanese people.” Even so, thousands of supporters attended a victory rally at the ruling party’s headquarters on Monday, waving Sudanese flags and dancing to patriotic songs. “This is a lesson we present to those who still think they are still trustees over the people of Sudan,” Mr. Bashir said at the rally. Mr. Bashir has repeatedly belittled his indictment in 2009 by the I.C.C. in connection with the Sudan government’s deadly repression of an insurgency in the Darfur region, and the stigma of that indictment has not been an electoral issue. But it has affected Mr. Bashir’s ability to travel outside the country for fear of arrest, forcing him to alter or cancel plans, sometimes at the last minute. Just last week he abruptly scrapped a visit to Indonesia to attend a meeting of the nonaligned movement, after several countries denied permission for his plane to fly over their airspace, Sudanese and Western media reported. Some analysts said that the low turnout was a setback for the party, even though hardly any votes were cast against Mr. Bashir. Abdelwahab El-Affendi, a professor of political science at the University of Westminster in London, said the ruling party “wanted the election as a referendum and a bargaining chip with the opposition and the international community,” but that “its gamble has backfired badly, because of the poor showing and lackluster participation.” Mr. Bashir called last year for a national dialogue to address the country’s political divisions and problems, but talks with the opposition have not yet produced any agreement. Dr. Affendi said that after the poor turnout in the election, he expected the opposition to “show intransigence, either rejecting dialogue altogether or dictating harsh terms.” He added, “This is the time for the international community, and in particular the African Union, to step in to put pressure on both sides to get down to serious dialogue.” |