The boycott of the elections in the North by much of the opposition was vindicated in the eyes of many independent observers when they saw the extent of the voting fraud by the NCP (aka National Islamic Front, NIF). This means that for both Sudanese and foreigners, such fraud has scuppered any idea that President Omer could claim a popular mandate for his defiance of the International Criminal Court's warrant to arrest him.
Ghana's ex-President, John Kufuor, who headed the African Union (AU) monitoring team, made emollient public statements about the polls but in a closed-door meeting with other monitors, he acknowledged that 'the irregularities were extremely apparent.'
Perhaps the NCP had hoped that by declaring that Field Marshal Omer had won 68.24% in the presidential vote, it might look reasonable in comparison with Salva Kiir Mayardit's 92.99% vote to succeed himself as Southern President, on the face of it a classic dictator's score. In fact, monitors agree there was far more fraud in the North than the South. Said one Western official of the South: 'Was there a systematic and deliberate campaign to rig the elections? No. Were there incidents? Yes.' Unlike the NCP, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) did not need to rig the elections to win them.
In the North, as opposition protests grew, interested governments' public acceptance of the badly flawed process persisted. Attitudes ranged from enthusiasm from the Arab League, most of whose regimes do not aspire to credible elections; public enthusiasm and private disdain from the AU, amid a retreat in Africa from earlier democratic gains; and detailed but moderate criticism from Western governments, which said they could live with the outcome, which they had expected.
France, for instance, announced on 27 April that the elections did 'not meet international standards' but were a 'step forward' towards implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), 'the guarantee of peace and stability in Sudan and the region'. Few in Darfur think they have peace or stability and many in the South fear they won't have for long, now the NCP has its victory.
One Egyptian diplomat had already made clear to Africa Confidential that his government could live with the expected NCP victory. On the day after his win, Omer flew to meet the President whom the NCP had tried to assassinate in 1995, Mohamed Hosni Mubarak. It summed up the strengths and weaknesses of Egyptian policy.
Cairo is convinced it can contain the NCP's Islamist operations within Sudan and concentrates its efforts on the deepening dispute over the Nile, where the two uneasy allies are this month pitted against the rest of the Nile Waters Agreement states: Burundi, Congo-Kinshasa, Ethiopia,Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda – four of them Sudan's neighbours but none of them Egypt's.
Egypt is a major influence on Western, especially British, acceptance of NCP rule but this cannot assuage Egyptian fears that an independent South will somehow 'steal' the River which is its lifeblood and major strategic concern. Grandiose Egyptian financed and managed wheat-growing projects in the far north of Sudan depend critically on control of the Nile waters for intense irrigation. Egypt appears to be counting on the NCP to prevent Southern independence. Since Khartoum has not even attempted to 'make unity attractive' to Southerners as the 2005 CPA requires, this suggests the NCP will seek to undermine the referendum. This is certainly what the SPLM expects and is preparing for, we understand.
Western governments focus on the referendum at the expense of, on the one hand, the Darfur crisis and, on the other, the national elections and the NCP rigging thereof. As one diplomat explained after the polls, 'The imperative of national self-determination took priority over the imperatives of democratic transformation.' Accordingly, the nightmare was that violently contested elections would jeopardise the referendum on Southern independence due in January 2011 and trigger the unravelling of the North-South peace. It is another question, however, whether meek or robust policies towards these elections would affect the NCP's tactics on the referendum.
Western efforts to placate NCP sensitivities over the elections reached extraordinary levels when the United States Special Envoy to Sudan, F. Scott Gration, attempted to 'save' the elections from Sudanese boycotters before voting began at the beginning of April. Citing generalised fraud and the impossibility of free elections in Darfur, the SPLM had announced it would boycott the presidential and Darfur polls. Although the SPLM likes Air Force General (Retired) Gration's policy emphasis on the South, it strongly opposed his recent revival of the idea of a confederal solution to the North-South relationship. Southerners say it is far too late for that. So he was rebuffed when he asked senior SPLM officials to halt the boycott or otherwise withdraw and support the NCP. Southerners now worry that the 'Troika' of Britain, Norway and the USA plus other interested governments will not help them when the NCP concentrates its efforts on undermining the independence referendum.
Northern oppositionists say they have been abandoned by governments which they used to see as allies and which they had hoped might support them in their aspirations for democracy and human rights. In London on 25 April, the two big Northern parties, the National Umma Party and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), held a joint meeting, where angry speakers from the floor denounced the West's policy on Sudan and its acceptance of the NCP's fraudulent elections and lack of concern for democratisation.
Such a reaction is rare among Northern Sudanese, who are usually too pro-Western or too polite to make such public criticisms. Expectations of the AU and Arab League were lower. 'We don't trust them any more now,' said Mohamed el Ansari Ali, head of the Umma Party in Britain andIreland. 'The AU and Arab League [monitors] used government facilities and this cannot make them independent.' Such comments are widespread and often couched less politely.
Activists said the London meeting means the opposition will continue what it has started. It faces huge challenges. The DUP was represented by its Vice-President, veteran lawyer Ali Mahmoud Hassanein, one of few opposition figures to call openly for Omer to face trial at the ICC, which has issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The DUP President, Mohamed Osman el Mirghani, continued his current balancing act in a style more usually associated with Umma leader El Sadig Sadeeg el Mahdi. Having decided to boycott the polls along with the SPLM and Umma, then changed his mind after talking to the NCP, the man who used to chair the National Democratic Alliance opposition coalition suddenly declared that the polls had been rigged and departed for Egypt, always seen as his party's material if not spiritual home.
This lack of opposition cohesion has helped the NCP to stay in power for nearly 21 years. It has also helped to prevent many diplomats and journalists from taking the election boycott seriously, even though the major parties took part, including the Sudan Communist Party, Umma, SPLM Northern Sector and many supporters of the DUP and other parties. The boycott got mixed reviews overseas, though the opposition sees it as successful: having fixed the vote, the NCP could be defeated only on moral grounds. A senior Western diplomat said the opposition had little choice when confronted with such wide -scale electoral crookery and had denied the ruling party a credible mandate.
Some outsiders argued that in 'transitional elections', protest is more effective than boycott. The opposition had of course protested earlier and SPLM Secretary General Pa'gan Amum Okiechand SPLM presidential candidate Yasir Saeed Arman Saeed were both arrested and beaten for their pains. Yasir eventually decided to withdraw but his stature has grown enormously across the country, especially in the North, where his energy and relative youth mark him out from the veteran opposition leaders: the leaders of the three major Northern parties have been in post for 30-40 years.
The notion that the polls are part of a transition to 'democratic transformation' is widely held in foreign (though certainly not Sudanese) circles: for Southerners they are a step on the path to independence; for Northerners, they are either a means for the NCP to gain spurious legitimacy or perhaps a spur to an opposition revival. The elections had provided 'more political space' in the North, a senior Western diplomat told Africa Confidential.
The diplomatic capabilities of the main Western election monitoring groups, the Carter Center and the European Union, were sorely tested. Both issued their reports on 17 April, before votes had been counted or more abuses emerged: this was because US ex-President Jimmy Carterand EU team leader Veronique de Keyser, a Belgian psychology professor and member of the European Parliament, both had prior engagements, we hear.
Both organisations expect their reports on rigging during the subsequent counting and tabulation stages to be hard-hitting, as will the final reports in a few weeks' time – but by then, the political moment will have been lost and the global news agenda will have moved on. While Sudanese civic groups doggedly monitored election abuses North and South, the only major foreign organisation to speak out loud and clear was Human Rights Watch.
The opposition is again beginning to think longer term, though. A big shake-up of the dynastic approach to politics may be in sight. The role of the SPLM will be crucial (AC Vol 51 No 8). The SPLM Northern Sector will gain greater autonomy and is likely to found a new opposition party, we hear, encouraged by strong support for its national presidential candidate, Yasir Arman.
Meanwhile, until January's referenda, the SPLM proper will be back in the Government of National Unity in Khartoum, although increasingly focussed on the South. Pa'gan Amum is likely to return to Juba, Africa Confidential understands, ready to help to prepare for a referendum that the SPLM expects the NCP to try – among other types of sabotage – to delay 'on technical grounds'. The SPLM wants none of it and is counting on the referendum going ahead.