Sudan's NEC agrees to extend polling period for two days
English.news.cn 2010-04-12 23:56:30 FeedbackPrintRSS

KHARTOUM, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's National Elections Commission (NEC) on Monday agreed to extend the polling period of the current general elections for two more days to last till Thursday.

"The NEC, following an emergency meeting, decided to extend the voting period for two days to end on Thursday April 15," NEC spokesman Salah Habib told Xinhua.

"The NEC will issue a statement later to cite the reasons behind the extension", he added.

The decision came after a lot of technical and administrative mistakes were found during the first two days of the general elections, the first multi-party election held in this African country in more than two decades.

In a statement issued on Sunday evening, the independent NEC acknowledged administrative and technical mistakes during the first day of the voting process in Sudan's general elections.

"Administrative and technical mistakes have accompanied the distribution of the ballots in 26 out of 821 polling stations in Khartoum State", said the NEC in the statement.

Meanwhile, the dominant Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in southern Sudan asked on Sunday an extension for three polling days.

Jambo Susan, a senior official responsible for the SPLM election campaigns, told Xinhua in Juba, the capital of the semi- autonomous southern Sudan, that the SPLM had asked the NEC for the extension without specifying the time it needed.

"We have noticed a lot of mistakes since the polling process started on Sunday morning, including names of candidates were wrongly printed on the ballots, and we need more time to correct these mistakes," the SPLM official noted.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Monday described the beginning of the polling process in Sudan's elections as difficult.

Speaking to reporters at the Juba airport, Carter said that the elections were supposed to begin on Monday instead of Sunday to allow the NEC to complete its logistical preparations.

The Carter Center, which was founded by the former U.S. president, is the only U.S. non-governmental organization authorized by the Sudanese government to monitor the general elections, and has sent 65 observers to Sudan.

In a report released on March 17, the Carter Center warned that the poor preparation could impact negatively the process and suggested to delay briefly the electoral process.

Sudan's media reported that the first day of Sudan's general election was marred by delay, confusion of candidates' names and symbols as well as withdrawal of some candidates for the national parliament while the opposition parties decry the failure of the process.

Among the errors the Sudan state media reported were voters mutilating the ballots by over-marking their choices and delay in receiving voting boxes.

In many parts of the country voting began in the afternoon because the polling stations have not yet received the ballots denying thousands of voters the opportunity to cast their votes.

Eight candidates have announced their withdrawal from the race including three journalists running as independents protesting the omission of their symbols in the ballots at many voting centers.

Others said that there was widespread discrepancy in voter records with many names missing or moved to different locations.

But the way things proceeded on the first day of the elections came to no one's surprise given the complexity of the elections that is meant to pick a president and a head of the government of the semi-autonomous southern Sudan, 24 governors as well as members of the state and national assemblies, using three different voting systems and up to 12 ballots.

Many among more than 16 million Sudanese voters are also voting for the first time