Elections Commissioner on arrival in Darfur says no delay to elections

December 2, 2009 (EL FASHER) – The Commissioner of the National Elections Commission, Abel Alier, arrived in North Darfur on Wednesday afternoon as part of a tour of western states. He said that there will be no delay of the elections, due to take place in April 2010 before the rainy season makes much of Southern Sudan impassable by road.

His position runs counter to that of some outspoken Darfuris who would prefer to delay the election until more progress is made in the Darfur peace process.

Alier said that their visit to North Darfur State was aimed at informing people about the voter registration, especially those living in the displaced people camps. This was reported by the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA). In a press statement upon arrival at El Fasher Airport, the commissioner called on all the citizens to register their names for voting in the coming elections.

As the registration period winds down, some have expressed concerns about voter education. The main international monitoring body in Sudan, the Carter Center, on Monday released a statement saying that “civic awareness of the process remains low and is contributing to the comparatively low rate of participation in registration in Eastern Sudan, North and South Kordofan, Darfur, and most states of Southern Sudan.”

Carter Center’s statement also reported that agents of the National Intelligence and Security Servic (NISS) were possibly keeping people away from the registration centers because their mere presence there was cause for fear for some.

Commissioner Alier, who was formerly vice president of Sudan before the Second Civil War, said that the election is part of implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and Sudan’s Interim Constitution.

Another official responsible for media outreach at the Elections High Commission in West Darfur, Mohamed Effendi Manzul, said that the total registration reached was 263,000 voters in the state, the SUNA reported.

Possibly in response to Carter Center’s statement about NISS agents, he “further reaffirmed the absence of any security imbalance in the Registration process, stressing that the response of voters to register and their motivation forced the Committee to increase the number of centers and the staff of the registry,” according to SUNA.

“There is full coordination with the Sheikhs and Umda of the displaced in all phases of the electoral process, which reflects positively on the operations of the registry,” he added.

(ST)