2010-02-11
Former US president believes there is ‘high likelihood’ Sudan’s presidential contest will need second round.
By Peter Martell - JUBA
Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir is likely to face a second round runoff against one of his opponents in April elections, former US president Jimmy Carter said on Thursday.
The presidential poll is to be held on April 11 in conjunction with parliamentary and regional elections as part of Sudan's first multi-party ballot since 1986.
Carter, who founded the Carter Center which is monitoring the elections, said he believed there was a "high likelihood" the presidential contest would need a second round.
"We don’t know yet whether President Beshir can get a majority at the beginning round," Carter told reporters in the southern capital.
"If not, which I think is likely, then there will be a runoff between him and the second person who got the most votes," he said.
In the election, the south’s ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) is challenging its former civil war enemies, Beshir's northern ruling National Congress Party (NCP).
Tensions are rising ahead of the ballot, with concerns the contest could boost violence in regions already struggling because of bloody inter-ethnic clashes that killed 2,500 people in south Sudan in 2009.
However, Carter said he expected there would be even more violence, and voiced hope it could be kept at a local level.
"I believe sincerely that everyone in Sudan, having suffered 25 years of horrible war, are dedicated to preventing any other outbreaks of violence," Carter said after meetings in Khartoum with Beshir and the south’s president, SPLM chairman Salva Kiir, in Juba.
"But this will be an intensely competitive election with a lot at stake, and I don’t think there is any doubt that there will be some altercations in the remote areas -- and I hope that they don’t expand."
The elections were provided for in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed in 2005 between north and south Sudan to end a devastating 22-year civil war that killed two million people.
The CPA is also meant to pave the way for a referendum on southern independence in January 2011.
The SPLM has chosen Yassir Arman, a secular Muslim from northern Sudan, to fight Beshir in the presidential election, while Kiir will seek another mandate as president of autonomous south Sudan.
Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37173.
Former US president believes there is ‘high likelihood’ Sudan’s presidential contest will need second round.
By Peter Martell - JUBA
Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir is likely to face a second round runoff against one of his opponents in April elections, former US president Jimmy Carter said on Thursday.
The presidential poll is to be held on April 11 in conjunction with parliamentary and regional elections as part of Sudan's first multi-party ballot since 1986.
Carter, who founded the Carter Center which is monitoring the elections, said he believed there was a "high likelihood" the presidential contest would need a second round.
"We don’t know yet whether President Beshir can get a majority at the beginning round," Carter told reporters in the southern capital.
"If not, which I think is likely, then there will be a runoff between him and the second person who got the most votes," he said.
In the election, the south’s ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) is challenging its former civil war enemies, Beshir's northern ruling National Congress Party (NCP).
Tensions are rising ahead of the ballot, with concerns the contest could boost violence in regions already struggling because of bloody inter-ethnic clashes that killed 2,500 people in south Sudan in 2009.
However, Carter said he expected there would be even more violence, and voiced hope it could be kept at a local level.
"I believe sincerely that everyone in Sudan, having suffered 25 years of horrible war, are dedicated to preventing any other outbreaks of violence," Carter said after meetings in Khartoum with Beshir and the south’s president, SPLM chairman Salva Kiir, in Juba.
"But this will be an intensely competitive election with a lot at stake, and I don’t think there is any doubt that there will be some altercations in the remote areas -- and I hope that they don’t expand."
The elections were provided for in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed in 2005 between north and south Sudan to end a devastating 22-year civil war that killed two million people.
The CPA is also meant to pave the way for a referendum on southern independence in January 2011.
The SPLM has chosen Yassir Arman, a secular Muslim from northern Sudan, to fight Beshir in the presidential election, while Kiir will seek another mandate as president of autonomous south Sudan.
Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37173.
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