SUDAN'S EMPTY ELECTION

By Ray Fleming THERE are other elections happening in the world and one of them takes place in the largest country in Africa, on Sunday. Sudan is a nation divided ethnically into two major parts, North and South, which fought a brutal Civil War for twenty years until a mainly western-brokered Comprehensive Peace Agreement brought it to an end in 2005. One of the conditions of this Agreement was that national elections should be held in 2010 and be followed by a referendum in the South on whether it wanted independence from the North. Unfortunately Sunday's election seems likely to be a farce since all the main parties, other than the National Congress Party led by the incumbent President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, have decided during the past week not to take part because of allegations of extensive rigged electoral arrangements. The Carter Center whose representatives have been on the spot for two years said this week that the validity of the election “remains at risk on multiple fronts”. When other international observers recently suggested that a postponement of the election would be advisable President al-Bashir threatened to “cut off their fingers and put them under our shoes” The worrying risk is that President al-Bashir will use the absence of other parties from Sunday's election to argue that the referendum on the South's independence, set for next year, should not take place either. If that were to happen the Civil War might easily restart.