Even before Sudanese polls open the death knell may be sounding over a united state Swiftly moving politics in Khartoum have plunged Sudan's troubled elections process -- which has already been mired in uncertainty, delay, and allegations of fraud and human rights abuses -- into deeper confusion this week. Yet despite calls for a delay by opposition parties and independent observers, citing the repressive human rights environment and an uneven playing field for political parties, elections are still set for 11-13 April. Last Wednesday the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) announced unexpectedly that its presidential candidate, Yasser Arman, would not run in the elections, and that it would pull out of the Darfur poll. In a press conference, SPLM leader and government of Southern Sudan Vice-President Riak Machar cited as reasons insecurity in Darfur and rigging and fraud during voter registration in November and December by the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). The following day the Juba Alliance, a coalition of opposition parties, announced they would boycott the elections, demanding a delay till November and citing a list of complaints including the failure of the ruling NCP to enact legal and other institutional reforms required under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the 2005 treaty between the Khartoum government and the former southern rebel group that ended Sudan's long civil war. The CPA had envisioned a six-year process of "democratic transformation", with elections a key milestone, but the national unity government has failed to enact the necessary reforms. Then the confusion really set in. Some parties in the coalition announced they were boycotting all levels of elections -- presidential, legislative and state -- while others were considering partial boycotts or re-entering the race. The Democratic Unionist Party, which initially joined the boycott, has decided to re- enter the presidential race. The Umma party said it would participate only if eight conditions -- ambitious steps to improve the electoral environment -- were met by Tuesday 6 April. Although the government had not taken the steps by yesterday the Umma Party is expected to rejoin the race. The 2010 elections, twice delayed from the 2009 date envisioned in the CPA timeline, were meant to be Sudan's first truly democratic multi-party elections in more than 20 years. Over 70 parties and 16,000 candidates were expected to run for office at the state level and in the parliaments of southern Sudan in Juba and nationally in Khartoum. Until last Wednesday there were 12 presidential candidates, among them President Omar Al-Bashir for the ruling National Congress Party; Yasser Arman for the SPLM; Sadig Al-Mahdi for the mainstream Umma Party; Ibrahim Nugud for the Communist Party; Mubarak Al-Fadil for the Umma Reform and Renewal Party and Abdullah Deng Nhial for the Popular Congress Party led by Hassan Al-Turabi. As of yesterday at least eight people, including one woman, were still in the running. Shortly after the SPLM announced its boycott on Wednesday night the US Special Envoy, retired army general Scott Gration, was en route to Khartoum for crisis meetings. Upon arrival, he set out to convince opposition parties to re-enter the race. The move reflects the unstated policy the US and other key international actors have been pushing for months: elections must be held at all costs as a prerequisite to the referendum on southern self- determination foreseen in the CPA and scheduled for January 2011. As one UN official explained, the international community wants legitimately-elected governments in place in Khartoum and Juba to carry out the referendum results, whatever they may be. But as opposition parties and independent observer groups such as the Carter Centre, the International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch have pointed out, over the past few months conditions for free and fair elections in Sudan have deteriorated. There has been evidence of fraud and intimidation during all phases of the elections. The ruling NCP's restrictions on freedom of expression, despite the formal lifting of pre-print censorship last September, continue. Government authorities have repeatedly stifled peaceful demonstrations, cancelled dialogues by political parties, and prevented civil society groups from carrying out critical voter education programmes. In southern Sudan the ruling SPLM has allowed similarly restrictive behaviour, including military detentions of members of Lam Akol's SPLM-Democratic Change (widely perceived to be aligned with the northern NCP), and smaller opposition parties campaigning in the south. On Friday, after meeting with the National Elections Commission in Khartoum, Gration declared he was confident elections would be credible and "as free and fair as possible". Predictably, northern opposition parties slammed him in the press and accused him of playing into the hands of the NCP. President Omar Al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Darfur, is desperate for the credibility elections might bring and thrilled with Gration's support: at a public rally in Sinnar state on Thursday he announced: "Even the Americans are members of the NCP now; no one can defeat us." The NCP's opponents are livid at perceived meddling on the part of Washington. They say the repressive environment the NCP has fostered since it came to power in 1989 will ensure elections are neither free and fair nor credible, and that the two signatories to the CPA -- the ruling NCP in Khartoum and SPLM in Juba -- will negotiate the referendum process regardless of how acceptable the elections appear to the rest of the world. For the SPLM, whose pro-secession interests are most clearly at stake in all this, the credibility of the elections is evidently not a prerequisite to the referendum. This Tuesday it announced a total boycott of all levels of elections in Sudan's northern states. All this eleventh hour boycotting and re- positioning has set people on edge and Sudan's rumour mills spinning. People on the streets are confused. Many supporters of opposition parties in the north are wondering who to vote for, if they decide to vote at all. In the south the parties' boycott is less relevant -- the point of the elections was never really to change the national government in Khartoum or help northern opposition parties fight for democracy and human rights. At the end of the day they will vote for secession, one way or another. For all the confusion and concern about the implications for the upcoming referendum, what the boycott makes clear is that there is no longer any hope for the "democratic transformation" envisioned in the CPA. The time for legal and institutional reform has long passed. For many, the failure to implement democratic reforms has also meant a failure to make -- in the language of the CPA -- unity attractive. It has dashed any hope of a united Sudan.
