KHARTOUM, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Sudanese National Election Committee (NEC) on Monday announced that the process of submitting nomination applications for the candidacies of the president of the country is to start on Tuesday.

In a statement issued in Khartoum, NEC Chairman Musa Mahjoub said that the committee would also accept at the same time nomination applications of those who want to run for the posts of the president of southern Sudan, governors of the 25 states in the country and members of the legislative councils on the national and state levels in the general elections scheduled for April this year.

He further explained that a person would be eligible for nomination as candidate if he or she satisfies specific terms including that he or she should be a Sudanese citizen, of sound mind, at least 40 years of age, literate and not having been convicted of an offense involving honesty or moral turpitude.

He added that the applicants should present certificates proving their consent to run for the elections and their financial assets and properties together with properties of their family members.

He noted that the candidate should also pay 10,000 SDGs (some 4,350 U.S. dollars) as insurance running for the office of the president, 5,000 SDGs for the office of president of southern Sudan and 2,000 for the office of governors.

In the meantime, NEC Deputy Chairman Abdalla Ahmed Abdalla warned against violence accompanying the elections.

"Violence accompanying elections has become a repeated phenomenon in many countries and therefore precautionary measures must be taken to face it and secure the coming elections in Sudan," he said.

The upcoming general elections, in which all the top posts of the executive and legislative authorities will be put for run, are the first multi-party elections to be held in this African country in more than 20 years.

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed by the Khartoum government and the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in 2005 to end a 21-year-long civil war had stipulated the general elections to be organized in July last year.

But the elections have been postponed to April this year due to logistics problems as well as a dispute between the two peace partners, namely the ruling National Congress Party and the SPLM on the latest population census.

According to the CPA, a referendum would be held in southern Sudan in January next year, only nine months after the general elections, to decide whether the semi-autonomous region would break away from Sudan, the largest country in size in Africa. (1 U.S. dollar = 2.30 SDGs)