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| Africa Horn |
| Sudan opposition mulls boycotting elections |
| 2010-04-01 |
| [Asharq al-Aswat] Sudanese opposition parties threatened on Wednesday to boycott their country's first multiparty election in a quarter century, saying fair contests were not possible. Over a dozen northern opposition parties were meeting Wednesday to consider the boycott after their calls for postponing the April 11 vote were ignored. The surest way to lose an election is not to run. Usually you boycott an election that you think you're going to lose -- if you're going to win you don't mind it being a crooked affair. So announcing a boycott is tantamount to saying that you're a loser and you know it. Not surprisingly a big chunk of the population then begins to wonder if you're the strong horse. The opposition maintains that overwhelming government control of the media and election monitoring bodies as well as biased legislation make a fair vote impossible. The junior partner in the governing coalition, the southern Sudan People's Liberation Party, said it would back the opposition's decision, throwing its relations with the president's party into jeopardy. The elections are a crucial step in the 2005 north-south peace deal that ended a 21-year civil war and paves the way for a referendum when southerners would decide whether they will opt for secession from the Muslim-dominated north. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir already struck back threatening to cancel the south's cherished referendum in which they hope to become an independent state. "If they (the south) say there will be no elections, we will say there will be no referendum," he said in a rally Monday. |
| Posted by:Fred |