Can the Available Monitoring Guarantee a Credibly Fair Election?
07 April, 2015KHARTOUM (SUDANOW)—With the beginning of the countdown for the end of the election campaign on April 10 to be followed by a two-day lull period before the three-day polling period (April 13-15),the National Election Commission (NEC) began to receive increasing applications from local and international centers and organizations for participation in observation of the elections. This has eased the tension that was caused by abstention by influential Western circles from taking part in the observation like what happened in the previous elections of 2010 which led to secession of South Sudan which were observed by 200 organizations, including 15 international ones.
NEC Chairman Professor Mukhtar al-Asum said the UNDP, Carter Center and the European Union (EU) placed a number of conditions for observation of the elections. "We accepted some of those conditions, but we turned down a request to verify participation by all eligible voters in the elections," he said.
The institutions which have declared their participation as observers include the African Union (AU) which dispatched a team to Khartoum for assessment of the situation ahead of the elections and making sure that the elections would be held in accordance with the AU Charter for Democracy which was signed by the Sudan, the Arab League, the Sahel and Sahara Organization, IGAD beside numerous international, regional and national journalists unions, including the International Journalists Union, the Arab Journalists Union, the east African Journalists Union addition to country journalists unions from Austria, Mauretania, Egypt Oman etc…. plus individual journalists from Latin America, Europe and the United States of America.
The NEC issued a circular permitting the political parties and the candidates and their accredited representatives to follow up and monitor all stages of the election process, starting from printing the voting cards, with their serial numbers in the Sudanese banknotes printing house, packing and transportation of those cards to the states and escort of the polling boxes until the end of counting the votes.
The Chairman of the political and civil Rights Committee and chairman of the Elections Supporting Committee of the National Human Rights Commission, Ustaz Ali Abuzaid, said the Commission approved a training courses programme for the national organizations for observation of the elections in a number of states, including Khartoum State. He added that the Commission was through with the technical preparations for the central observation room and the committee for complaints and emergencies which occur during the election process.
Despite all these precautions, the viewpoints of the political forces and candidates on those preparations differed, with some of them commending the monitoring disciplines, others criticized them and suspected forgery in advance. One citizen said he would not vote because the President is prepared in advance but if the President is determined by the polling boxes and under a close observation, all the Sudanese people will vote.
The Director of Khartoum International Center for Human Rights, Dr. Ahmed al-Mufti- a prominent jurist, opined that the decision by the AU for participation in observation of the 2015 elections following a visit to the Sudan testifies to the neutrality and independence of the elections.
He said, however, that due to the lack of capabilities, his Center could not take part in observation of the elections.
Dr. Mufti noted that the candidates should be more concerned with the elections observation process than the observers.
But for her part, elections expert and Sudanese Civil Forum member Tayseer al-Norani minimized the importance of the representatives of the parties, saying: "Granting the close observation right to the representatives of the political parties as from the printing of the cards until the polling will add nothing because these cards are printed in top secrecy".
She added that the 2015 elections do not ascribe to the eight conditions contained in the international conventions on the elections transparency due to the lack of a true competition and because the political and legal environment is not conducive and is not characterized by the transparency from the start beside selection of specific observers and barring others in addition to placing the NCP candidates on the top of the list of the candidates. And anything built on a bent foundation cannot be straightened."
Presidential Candidate Omar Awad Hussein underlines the importance of having an international supervision for according legitimacy bestowing fairness to the elections. He said he had suggested to the NEC installation of observation cameras at the polling centers in all states in absence of an international supervision with the presence of local monitors, provided that the concerned international organizations undertake the cost of installation of the cameras. The candidate added that the NEC had rejected his suggestion on grounds it would be implemented by foreign funding.
The Russian Ambassador to Khartoum, HE Amir Ghayth Cherinsky, regarded non-participation by some countries in observation of the elections in Sudan is a matter of concern to those countries, rather than a Sudanese issue as the Sudanese government and the NEC have announced readiness to welcome observers from all countries to monitor the polling.
"Therefore we believe that refusal by some countries to participate in the observation does not impair the credibility and fairness of the elections," the Russian Ambassador said.
It is to be recalled that the international bodies presently being called upon to observe the forthcoming elections were the same bodies which were accused by the Sudanese opposition and civil society organizations for ignoring in the previous elections wide-range violations. The same bodies declared that those elections were not compatible with the international standards. The leader of the European observers, Veronica de Kiser, considered the first plural elections in 25 years "were not up to the international standards but will pave the way for democracy in Africa's biggest country."
"The elections were not in line with all but with some of the international standards. The step was decisive for implementation of the CPA, which means the peace process is continuing," she added.
Carter Center said the elections did not comply with the international standards and the Sudan commitment to organizing genuine elections in several aspects; but still, the elections were important as a basic step towards implementation of the CPA, bearing in mind the political and civil participation in exercise.
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