European Union withdraws Darfur poll observers

The European Union said on Wednesday it was withdrawing its election observers from Sudan's Darfur region, saying safety fears were hindering their work.

"I have decided to go back with all the team of six observers that were still in Darfur," EU head of mission Veronique de Keyser told reporters on the plane.

"It's always sad to leave this region which is such a poor region but I really knew when I came that to observe elections here, it's impossible in a credible way," she said. "There are many safety limitations."

The pullout has put the credibility of Sudan's election further into doubt after a main opposition party widened its boycott of the vote.

Sudan is days away from what should be its first multi-party presidential, legislative and gubernatorial elections in 24 years, but opposition parties have said the polls in Darfur will be a farce while a seven-year conflict continues in the region.

The vote is a prelude to a referendum on southern independence scheduled for January 2011.

The former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement said late on Tuesday it was extending its boycott to include the northern states in Sudan including Darfur.

But it said it would still field candidates in the sensitive border states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, where the party enjoys support.

Pagan Amum, the SPLM secretary general, lashed out at President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's National Congress Party, accusing it of intimidation.

"The NCP continues to issue threats to observers and you can imagine if they are threatening observers to cut their limbs and noses, what will happen to Sudanese people," he said, in reference to statements Bashir had made.

The NCP continues to issue threats to observers and you can imagine if they are threatening observers to cut their limbs and noses, what will happen to Sudanese people

Pagan Amum, SPLM secretary general

Carter

The Sudanese leader had warned that if observers "intervene in our affairs, then we will cut off their fingers and crush them under our shoes."

Amum said Sudanese authorities had expelled observers with the Carter Centre in nine northern states, saying it revealed the NCP's "intolerance", but Graham Elson, field officer with the centre that was set up by US former president Jimmy Carter, denied anyone had been kicked out.

Softening his approach regarding observers, Bashir on Wednesday said he would grant Carter and his election observers unlimited access in the country.

"In two days, president Carter will arrive and I will receive him and will give him and his centre permission to go to any area of Sudan and to monitor any area in Sudan," Bashir told a rally in the north, as the election campaign begins to wind down.

A report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group accused the NCP of "long-term plans to rig the elections," including by using manipulated results of a 2008 census to draw up electoral districts in its favor.

In the run-up to the elections, opposition groups wavered over their intention to participate and on what level.

The Democratic Unionist Party, one of Sudan's two main opposition groups, said on Tuesday it would present Hatim al-Sir as presidential candidate, after an initial decision to boycott.

The other key opposition group, the Umma party, is expected to announce its level of participation in the election later on Wednesday, after it had given Bashir a list of conditions, including freezing "repressive" security measures and pushing back the election date.

The Umma and the DUP came first and second respectively in the 1986 elections three years before Bashir came to power in a military coup.

In a slight shift in position, the United States said on Monday it would accept a short delay in the landmark elections if it helped address concerns, after initially stating it was confident the vote would start on time.

But Sudan's national election commission insisted Tuesday that the vote will go ahead as planned on April 11-13.

North and south Sudan were engaged in a bitter decades-long civil war that left around two million dead and some four million displaced.

The two parties signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, which provided for both the elections and the referendum.

In two days, president Carter will arrive and I will receive him and will give him and his centre permission to go to any area of Sudan and to monitor any area in Sudan

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir