20100419
alalam

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir scored overwhelming victories in a sample of results from national elections, state media reported on Sunday.

Both European Union and Carter Center observers have said last week's elections stopped short of echoing opposition allegations of widespread rigging.

The polls, set up under a 2005 peace deal that ended two decades of north-south civil war, were supposed to help transform the troubled oil-producing nation into a democracy.

Bashir won between 70-92 percent of votes cast in around 35 scattered polling centers, foreign voting posts and one state, the state Suna news agency reported.

The figures have not been confirmed by the National Elections Commission and represent a fraction of the country.

A senior official from Bashir's dominant National Congress Party said he was expecting similar results across Sudan.

"This victory is a real victory ... The counting of the votes took place under the sun, not in a dark room. The observers saw everything," Rabie Abdelati said.

Sudanese expatriates overwhelmingly supported Bashir in polling centers set up in Libya, Oman, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, with majorities of between 77 and 92 percent.

The state agency said Bashir had secured 90 per cent of the votes for the presidency in the country's Northern State.

There were similar majorities recorded in individual voting centers across northern Sudan, said Suna.

The National Elections Commission has delayed issuing official results but says it will begin on Sunday. Election officials in south Sudan said some results might be delayed until Tuesday, the official deadline for announcements.