KHARTOUM ��" Two political parties in Sudan's underdeveloped east on Tuesday accused the country's party of using fraud and intimidation to secure sweeping elections victories across their region. Sudan is holding its first open polls in 24 years as part of a peace deal that was supposed to bring the oil-producing nation back to democracy after decades of civil war. Much of the opposition boycotted the proceedings before voting started citing irregularities, and observers have already said the elections did not meet international standards. Officials are still counting votes in many areas, but the few results they have announced appear to show a strong win for the National Congress Party (NCP), led by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. East Sudan's Beja Congress party, which is formally allied with the NCP, told reporters it had only managed to win one seat in a local assembly in Red Sea state, but none in the national parliament. The East is crucial to Sudan's oil-driven economy as it contains the only commercial port and miles of pipeline. "We caught them (the NCP) emptying ballot boxes and they expelled our monitors from the voting centres during voting and counting," Abdullah Moussa, a senior Beja Congress official in Port Sudan told reporters. "We won this one (state assembly seat) only because it is a small area �" one family and the young boys managed to guard many voting centres with small weapons at night," he said. According to official results from another Red Sea state constituency, the NCP candidate won almost 18,000 votes compared to just 839 for the eastern party. The party signed a peace deal with Khartoum in 2006, ending a lingering insurgency in the east and its leader became a presidential assistant. But is has complained the government has continued to neglect the region since the accord.
