Sudan extends voting period for two days
April 11, 2010 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan electoral board on Monday extended the voting period for two days due to delay and confusion in the complex general election that started on Sunday.
In a press conference held on Sunday evening in Juba by the party’s presidential candidate’s campaign team leader, Dr. Samson Kwaje, he said that names were missing; wrongly written or transported to wrong polling stations and some boxes were also missing.
The NEC decided to extend the voting period for two days, to end on Thursday April 15. In a press statement released on Monday the NEC said the extension was based on objective reasons noticed during the first day of polling.
The electoral board appointed by the two peace partners, NCP and SPLM, is highly criticized for the conduct of the electoral process. Opposition parties say it is totally controlled by elements from the dominant party.
Abdel Aziz Khalid, a candidate for the presidential elections who refused to boycott, called to cancel the current electoral process.
“There is no way to rescue this process,” he told Reuters.
Election officials at some of South Sudan’s polling stations said the technical errors accompanied the process have reduced after the NEC corrected the mistakes regarding polling cards and voters list
Sudanese voters on Monday continued casting their votes in the second day of the polling process with low turnout in most of the polling stations in Khartoum.
“The second day started calmly, but the turnout is lower than yesterday. However, we expect the turnout to increase as time passes,” Mohamed al-Mutasim al-Hady, director of Riyadh polling center told journalists.
He affirmed that the technical and administrative errors which occurred during the first day have been reduced, saying “the NEC has adopted urgent procedures and tackled the errors, which was positively reflected during the second day.”
However, representatives of some political parties said they had observed matters which they believed would affect transparency of the polling process.
In the meantime, international observers of Sudan’s election on Sunday said the registered errors would not affect the credibility of the election in Sudan.
Despite earlier expectations that pulling out of some opposition parties from the elections would negatively affect participation of the voters, the Sudanese voters seemed keen to vote.
“We are keen to participate in the elections which give us the opportunity to select who to lead Sudan in the coming period,” John Anikpari, a Sudanese citizen, told Sudan Tribune.
“I’m 39 years old, and I have never participated in any election before. This time the matter is different, because people are aware of the importance of the elections,” he added.
(ST)
Gatwech
Sudan extends voting period for two days
Dear readers,
The extension of the voting period for two more days will change nothing positive but even make things worse especially stuffing of boxes with fake ballots. The confusion of missing names or lists taken to wrong places and lost track for ever will not be resolved but messed up even further. And besides, there are few voters as the turnout is reported very low in many states. In a station that registered 1000 for example, only 50 people have voted so far.
I read Dr. Ann Itto’s report that in a station in Toirt town where 1,323 were registered to vote, only 29 of them voted on Monday, making it only 2% of the whole list.
I have heard from reliable sources on the ground that there is high possibility of exchanging legitimate boxes with already stuffed ones with pre-ticked ballots. This extension will negatively give more chance for manipulations.
The polling had a wrong start on Sunday when tens of thousands of names began to be missing including names of ministers and contesting governors.
Funny thing though is when the president of South Sudan, Salvatore Kiir, was reported all over the world media including the BBC that he put his ballot paper in the wrong box as he inaugurated the voting early in the morning on Sunday. Probably he unknowingly voted for Dr. Lam Akol and put the ballot paper in Bashir’s box. What a funny fake election!!!