Sudan ruling party offers opposition govt posts

Sudan's ruling party, in an apparent bid to heal a rift over accusations of vote fraud, said on Wednesday it would invite opposition groups to join the government if it won elections currently in progress, As election officials were considering re-running ballots in a very few constituencies.

Sudan is four days into presidential and legislative polls aimed at helping to bring the oil-producing state back to democracy more than two decades after a military-led coup.

The poll's credibility was cast in doubt after some main opposition parties decided to boycott large parts of the poll, accusing incumbent president Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his northern National Congress Party (NCP) of widespread rigging.

"If we are declared winners in the elections ... we would extend the invitation to all parties, even those who have not participated in the elections, to join the government because we believe this is a critical moment in our history," senior NCP official Ghazi Salah Eddin told reporters.

"We are facing important decisions like self-determination in the south and would like to garner as much support and as much consensus as we can."

The elections were set up under a 2005 peace accord that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war and also promised a referendum on whether the south should secede in January 2011.

The decision by south Sudan's dominant Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) to boycott the vote and most polls in northern Sudan had raised fears of unrest in the build up to next year's referendum.

No one from the SPLM or other boycotting groups, including the opposition Umma party, was immediately available to comment on Salah Eddin's offer.

Re-running ballots

Sudanese election officials earlier said they were considering re-running ballots in a very few constituencies to correct errors in voting forms, as the troubled poll entered its fourth day.

Bashir is facing charges from the International Criminal Court of masterminding war crimes in the western Darfur region and analysts say he is hoping to legitimize his rule through the poll.

Officials from Sudan's National Elections Commission said they were considering suspending voting for seats in national and state assemblies in some states after discovering they had printed the wrong party symbols next to some candidates' names on ballot papers.

"Logos have been swapped in a very limited number of constituencies," said commission deputy chairman Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah.

"According to the law it (the commission) can cancel elections and hold them again within 60 days. That is one of the options we are considering."

Other commission members and international observers said the printing errors were thought to have affected ballots in 15 to 18 state and national constituencies.

Voting has been taking place in 270 national constituencies and just under 700 state constituencies in African's largest state.

"There are ballots that are missing symbols, duplicate symbols, even missing candidates on some forms, so that (a partial re-run) would be the logical step to take," said one international source close to the elections.

Voting began on Sunday and was extended to last five days to allow more time for voters and officials to deal with the elections' complexities.

Election monitors across Sudan said early voting had been affected by missing ballot boxes, poor staff training and confusion over the location of voting centers.

If we are declared winners in the elections ... we would extend the invitation to all parties, even those who have not participated in the elections, to join the government because we believe this is a critical moment in our history

Ghazi Salah Eddin, NCP