Sudan’s electoral board and election rigging
By Hafiz Ismail
April 28, 2010 — It is clear for the start of the election process that the NEC has breached the election Act many times:
– By bringing forward the date at which any candidate supposed to withdraw his/her candidateship by one month from the 12 of March to the 12 of April without any justification.
– The accepted back the candidateship of SPLM candidates for the National Assembly from South Kordofan , after they withdraw them within the legal time frame, which was because the NCP and SPLM agreed to that, although it was a clear breach of the law.
– Many of the polling station staff are members of the NCP, and some are from the neighbourhood popular committees which are totally controlled by the NCP.
– Allowing the certificates from the popular committee to be used as source of identification for voters, without using any extra document, has been common. That a clear breach of their own rules, and opens the gate to frauds. That is clear in many polling stations, in the first day of voting as; some NCP members are sitting near to the polling station issuing certificate to allow people to vote without any further checks.
– Most of the people chosen as local observers are members of the NCP, and that also clear violation of the rules as people are not allowed to be monitors if they are member of a political party or support any candidate election campaign.
– The language the NEC is using to respond to any complaint from other political parties is just an imitation of the NCP leaders’ language, so that they are seen as taking sides in the ongoing political dispute between the NCP and other political parties. That led other political parties passing a vote of no confidence on it.
All those problems have overshadowed the whole election process and seriously undermined the NEC’s credibility.
It is clear from what is happening in the last few days that those behind the rigging of the election in Sudan are not smart enough, as the way the result came out shows how ugly the ways they decided to use in defrauding the election. We heard about how the Islamists used to rig universities students unions election when the PCP split from the NCP by replacing the boxes. In our observers training manual, through the training courses, I came with of around 20 possible ways for frauds, but I have never thought that they will do it that openly and clearly, they also forgot to take into account the use of technology like mobile phones, video cameras and other means, the observers of the independent Sudanese CSOs caught thousands of frauds cases by their mobiles and cameras, I will go through some few examples to prove what I mean by that:
1- The video footages which been circulated in some TV channels and in You Tube website is proved to be genuine and correct and not fabricated as the NEC and some NCP leaders claimed, in a news conference in the Red Sea State where the footages where taken , Mr Mustafa Al Tahair told reporters that he took those footages from Al Tarifa voting centre near Arabab district , he decided to do that after NEC officials in the Polling station threaten to expel him from the centre and not allow him to enter the station as he is one of the DUP agents in this polling station and he complained about the way they are rigging the election openly , this constituency later won by Mohamed AL Tahair Al Amin the former commissioner of Port Sudan Locality (NCP). Some senior NEC official denied that, now we have the evidence what they are going to do; I don’t have much faith on them anywhere.
2- Mr Abdel Alla Danig the Popular Congress Party (PCP) candidate for the president got ZERO votes in the centre where himself and 4 of his family voted, the only possibilities we have is either, he and his family voted for President Omer Al Bashair or the others of candidates, the other possibility is their voting papers considered void as they made a mistake, if anyone has any other explanations for that please let me know.
3- Mr Hatim Al Sir the DUP presidential candidate got 18 votes in Al Basabir his area and the heart land of Al Khatima sect , his relative are more than 30 people I will leave the rest for you.
4- Dr Al Jali the sons of Sheikh Al Jali of Kadabas in the River Nile State and the DUP candidate for the governor of the River Nile state, got 168 votes in Kadabas, where there are more than 700 of his father followers in their camp they normally vote by their Sheikh instruction how can he loose 532 votes there, everyone whom understand how the followers of those sect behave know what I mean.
5- Even Dr Hassan Al Trabi is complaining about not getting all his family’s votes, I might say his wife the sister of the Umma Party leader Sadig AL Mahadi voted for her brother but he didn’t run.
6- The drama in Blue Nile State, Malik Agar SPLM candidate lost the election according to the preliminary result , he rejected that and threaten to go back to war , many NCP senior leaders include Nafia and Ahmed Haron and also Dr Al Asum(NEC commissioner) fly to Damazain , and they asked for recount , Ali Osman the Vice president took him with him to Juba, it was clear that they want to assure him that they will allow him to win, but the most unbelievable thing is that the recount discover that there was mistake in counting 30,000 votes , I can understand mistakes of 100 or even 1000 votes but not 30,000, do they want us to believe that, this is just a joke. I think they rigged it to defeat him and after they realised the threat they rigged it again to allow him to win if not Why recount is in Blue Nile state only and not North Kordofan where Margani Abdel Rahman is the actual winner as I know the NCP candidate whom won the election Mr Mutazim Margani will not get his brother vote as he is from a very famous Umma party family in El Obied where I born and grow up. In a one of El obied voting centre One of my uncle ,came out and told the everyone that he and his wife voted for Margani Abdel Rahman when he realised that Margani got zero vote in that centre this just one story I have thousands of such stories.
The NEC supposed to declare all the result yesterday Thursday 22 April 2010, but there decided to defer it without give any new date , I suspect that they are cooking something as the NCP realised that the result is very ugly .
The author is the General Secretary of Justice Africa Sudan Executive Committe. He can be reached at [email protected]