Carter Center says concerned about accuracy of Sudan poll results

May 10, 2010 (WASHINGTON) — The Carter Center, the major international elections monitoring body, issued a statement today saying that the vote tabulation process in Sudan ” was chaotic and lacked transparency” casting further doubts on the credibility of the first multi-party elections held in the country since 1986.

The April multi-party polls, the first in 24 years saw President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir reelected despite an international arrest warrant on war crimes charges allegedly committed in Darfur. Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) achieved a landslide victory in the North while the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) did the same in the South.

Several heavyweight political parties boycotted the elections accusing the NCP of orchestrating widespread fraud and vote rigging.

The USA-based organization, which has observed elections in 30 countries said that the vote counting process raises “serious questions about the accuracy of election results” and further suggested that the National Elections Commission (NEC) deliberately changes results in some cases.

“While alterations to results were often an attempt to correct mathematical errors, in some cases numbers were arbitrarily changed without clear explanation,” it added.

“In at least a quarter of observed states, data entry staff were frequently observed altering Results Forms, increasing or decreasing both the number of invalid votes and also the number of votes won by candidates so as to reconcile the figures,” the statement said.

“This raises serious questions about the accuracy of the results and makes it extremely difficult to track how votes were tallied and how discrepancies were resolved at each data centre.

“According to Carter Centre observers, domestic observers, party agents, and candidates, the elections in Unity State suffered from large-scale intimidation, violence, flaws in administration, and indications of manipulation,” the statement said.

Last weekend the NEC admitted that investigation into a YouTube video revealed two cases of vote rigging and vowed to prosecute those responsible.

Last month, a video was posted to YouTube showing NEC staff filling out the ballots and putting them inside the boxes leading opposition to blast the authorities and emphasize that is solid proof over the unfairness of the polls which concluded last month.

However, the NEC officials at the time dismissed the video as fabricated and rejected calls for investigation before later reversing its position upon receiving a challenge from an unidentified party.

Carter Center urged the NEC ” to publish the results of individual polling stations as quickly and widely as possible and to thoroughly review the results, especially those based on manual tabulation, which lack the safeguards of the electronic tabulation system, or where other deviations from procedure occurred”.

“A swift posting of all polling station results could allow stakeholders to verify the accuracy of the official data, addressing ongoing doubts as to the credibility of the results”.

The announcement of the elections results were delayed by almost a week and it was disclosed during the process that the NEC ordered its stations across the country to stop entering the results into the designated software built for that purpose and start transmitting it manually in order to save time.

Election observers, who advises against the move, criticized the new process saying it makes it extremely vulnerable to manipulation and prevents detection of discrepancy.

The Carter Center said that in seven states its observers were stopped from witnessing the counting. It also noted numerous polling stations with 100 percent turnout, or where 100 percent of votes were cast for one candidate or one party, particularly in east and south Sudan.

(ST)