CAMPAIGNING IN Sudan’s first multiparty election in 24 years drew to a close yesterday, as Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir looked assured of re-election in a poll dubbed illegitimate by international observers.
Addressing a rally in Dalgo, north Sudan, Mr Bashir promised to build roads that stretched from the west of the country all the way to Ethiopia in the east.
“We are not focused on just one region, we are working for balanced development,” he said.
“It is our duty to offer services to our people.”
In Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan, the region’s president, Salva Kiir, promised an end to the civil strife that has plagued the country north and south since independence in 1956.
Speaking before a crowd of up to 1,000 people, he said “There will be peace in Sudan when I become president. In every county, estate and village, there will be no more fighting.”
Over 50 years, more than two million people have died in fighting between the mainly Muslim north and Christian south. Although the war formally ended in 2005 with the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA), tensions have been rising ahead of a poll in January 2011, in which the south is expected to split from the rest of the country.
“Heightened levels of suspicion between the north and the south means that the political environment is extremely volatile,” Dr Tim Murithi, programme head at the Institute for Security Studies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, told The Irish Times.
Even if the south were to vote for independence, “the aftermath could continue to be marred by violent confrontation and a newly born country could find itself in the throes of a civil war between its competing ethnic groups”.
Mr Bashir has already threatened to stall the referendum on independence, after Mr Kiir’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) announced a boycott of the elections in Darfur and the north of the country.
However, the SPLM said it had little choice, given that international observers have alleged that the vote is rigged.
Opposition parties began taking claims of rigging seriously after it emerged on April 1st that ballots for the presidential election had been printed in Khartoum, the capital – at a firm controlled by Mr Bashir’s ruling party – instead of in South Africa as agreed.
But those attending the rally in Juba were in no doubt as to who they would be voting for.
“Salva Kiir is a good man,” said Manuel Wani, a carpenter from the city. “You have to vote. If we don’t vote, we won’t get what we want – our own country.”
Gatwech Kong, a student in Juba agreed.
“My hope is for the country to be developed, for roads to be built from Juba to Bor. And the only way for that to happen is if Kiir is voted president of south Sudan.”