2010-03-29
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudans's opposition united on Monday to demand a review of procedures for next month's landmark election, saying it feared using a state printing company to print ballot papers would lead to fraud.

Last week it emerged the NEC had awarded the Sudanese Currency Printing Press a contract to print the ballot papers for April's presidential and governors' elections, the first multi-party votes in Sudan in 24 years.

On Monday the National Elections Commission told Reuters the same government company had also been contracted to print voter registration books, further outraging the opposition.

"The registration (printing) was done in Sudan ... by the same company and another (Sudanese) one called New Life - it was shared between the two companies," said NEC member al-Hadi Mohamed Ahmed, responsible for procurement.

The elections in Africa's largest country were promised under a 2005 deal that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war over ethnicity, ideology, oil and religion.

The opposition had already expressed concern about fraud in last year's registration, during which the commission said 16 million people registered to vote.

All 11 presidential candidates opposing National Congress Party (NCP) incumbent President Omar Hassan al-Bashir signed Monday's statement demanding the formation of an "independent group to audit the finances and administration of the NEC".

It said the awarding of the printing contracts to a government firm had given the NCP full control over the key registration process. "This is very serious and underlines that there is absolutely no transparency whatsoever," said opposition Umma Party spokeswoman Mariam al-Mahdi.

Mubarak al-Fadil, a presidential candidate opposing Bashir, said his supporters had seen the NCP still registering people, accusing it of adding to the register.

"This is very worrying indeed because this confirms that the registration was fiddled with," he said. "This explains how they (the NCP) were doing a parallel registration, and still are -- because they had direct access to the books."

The NCP criticised the opposition for doubting the integrity of a national institution like the Sudanese Currency Printing Press and accused them of trying to sabotage the polls.

"To use printing of (ballot) papers as a forgery element in elections you need to put them inside the ballot box ... (which) is being observed by ... the political parties and observers from international organisations," said senior NCP official Ibrahim Ghandour.

He said the NCP were going house to house registering supporters, not adding to the electoral register.

Voting is due to begin on April 11, although many parties have called for another delay in the poll, originally scheduled before July 2009.

The only long-term observer mission, the Carter Center, said earlier in March the electoral register was still not ready, with hundreds of thousands of names missing just weeks ahead of the polls.