EU says Sudan election 'failed' to meet standards

Sudan "struggled to meet international standards" in its controversial recent elections, according to EU observers.

• Sudanese observers in a polling station during the presidential elections in Sudan in Khartoum, Sudan on 14 April 2010 

BBC News

The chief of the EU's monitoring mission said Sudan had "not reached all [standards] but some of them". The polls were intended to effect a democratic transformation in Africa's largest country. The complicated ballot has already been heavily criticised by the Sudanese opposition and local observers. Final results are expected on Tuesday. 

Speaking at a news conference in Khartoum, EU mission chief Veronique de Keyser said: "Turnout is very high, 60%, but with significant deficiencies.

"Theses elections did not reach international standards, not yet."

The EU's team was withdrawn from Darfur, where a low-level civil war continues, because of fears about safety and whether the monitors could observe freely.

Conciliatory remarks

The EU and the Carter Centre, the organisation of the former US President Jimmy Carter, had two of the biggest observer missions on the ground.

The Carter Centre is expected to deliver its initial response to Sudan's elections later on Saturday.
 

These initial reports will give some indication of whether the rest of the world considers these landmark elections to have been free and fair, says the BBC's James Copnall in Khartoum.

Many parties and politicians opposed to President Omar al-Bashir boycotted the polls before they started to protest at alleged fraud.

Then the vote had to be extended by two days after the delayed arrival of electoral material meant many polling stations opened late.

Mr Carter has so far been conciliatory in his public remarks, suggesting the National Elections Commission was doing its best to produce fair polls.

That angered many opposition politicians and democracy activists, who believe the Elections Commission is biased in favour of President Bashir's party.

The polls - presidential, parliamentary and regional - were the first multi-party elections since 1986 and part of a north-south deal to end two decades of war.

President Bashir is hoping for a respectable win, in particular after he was indicted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Darfur, our correspondent says.

During the campaign he railed against interference by foreign observers, before softening his tone to some extent.

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