International monitors said Saturday that Sudan's first multiparty elections in more than two decades failed to meet international standards, an assessment that diminishes hopes the voting would set the nation on the road to peace and democracy. The conclusions also boosted fears that a flawed vote could fuel violence in the conflict-strewn country, where some opposition parties challenging the fairness of the process boycotted all or some of the local and national races. The five days of voting, which ended Thursday, were the first multiparty presidential, parliamentary and local elections in 24 years. A monitoring team from the EU said Saturday that key aspects of the election process were undermined. Names were missing from voter registries, election resources were not evenly spread to all parts of the vast country and there were cases of voter intimidation, said Veronique de Keyser, who led the 130-member team. Former US President Jimmy Carter, who headed a separate monitoring mission from his organization, came to a similar conclusion. “It is too early to offer a final, overall assessment, but it is obvious that the elections will fall short of international standards that are expected of advanced democracies,” Carter said at a news conference. “The people's expectations have not been met.” Preliminary results from the presidential race showed incumbent Omar Al-Beshir had won between 88 percent and 94 percent of votes counted after his most credible challengers dropped out of the race in protest. The EU mission had 130 observers at 13 percent of the country's polling stations. The Carter Center team released a 21-page report on the voting and also pressed the need for a fair election process in the fragile country. “International standards need to be pursued aggressively to ensure unity in this country as well as peace,” Carter said. Besides the north-south civil war, Sudan has been beset by a separate conflict in the western region of Darfur between government forces and rebel groups. An estimated 300,000 people died of violence, disease and displacement in that conflict, which began in 2003. Opposition to reject poll results The two main Sudanese opposition parties that challenged President Omar Al-Beshir's National Congress in this week's landmark multi-party elections said they would reject the results. Hatem Al-Sirr of the opposition heavyweight Democratic Unionist Party, who ran against Beshir in the presidential race, said he would not recognise the results of the election that is likely to see Beshir reelected. “I reject the results of the elections and I will not recognize them,” said Sirr. Earlier Hassan Al-Turabi described the country's first competitive elections in 24 years as “fraudulent,” and said his party would not join the next government. “The voting and the counting process are fraudulent. We will take the matter to court and if the judge does not rule in our favour, we may have to use other alternatives than the ballot boxes,” said Turabi, once a mentor to Beshir and now one of his fiercest critics.
