15 Aug 2009
Sudan's main opposition parties say they will boycott next-year's election unless their demands for constitutional amendments are met; some immediately and some by mid-October.

"We have an ultimatum that all those laws should be amended before the elections ... (or) we will boycott the elections," Reuters quoted Saddiq Yousif, a leader of the Communist Party, as saying on Saturday.

"We should be able to have our meetings without permission," Yousif added.

The opposition believes that the current laws, including a clause that allows authorities to dissolve meetings, leave little room for free and fair campaigning in the twice delayed elections, part of a 2005 peace deal between the warring north and south Sudan.

In June, Sudan said its first free nationwide elections in more than two decades would be delayed for two months to April 2010, the second time the date, originally stipulated for 2008, has been changed.

Electors will vote for their president as well as members of parliament and other government bodies.

Head of UN peacekeeping forces in Sudan's vast conflict-ridden Darfur region warned last month that Darfuris would be left out of the poll.

The ruling coalition, headed by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's National Congress Party and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), from Sudan's north and south respectively, dominate the assembly.

Recently tension between the two main parties has raised concerns that it would challenge efforts for democracy and upholding a peaceful election.

The 2005 North-South Peace Agreement ended a long-running civil war which had claimed above 2 million lives, while a fresh conflict continues to claim lives in Darfur since 2003.

Violence has intensified in the desert region with increasing attacks against aid workers following the ICC warrant against Bashir over alleged war crimes in Darfur.
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