Last week, the window for nominating candidates for Sudan’s April elections came to a close. These elections, held at not just the national, but also state and local levels, are a major component of the peace agreement signed in 2005 by the two major parties, the ruling NCP in the North and its southern counterpart the SPLM, to end the civil war.
We were going to work up a feature to highlight the main candidates from which the Sudanese people will be electing their next president, but Reuters got ahead of us. According to the news agency, here are the five main contenders to watch:
Yasir Arman – Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)
Omar Hassan Al-Bashir – National Congress Party (NCP)
Sadeq Al-Mahdi – Umma Party
Abdallah Deng Nhial – Popular Congress Party (PCP)
Hatim Al-Sir – Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)
Make sure you also take a look at the useful profiles Reuters “Factbox” provides on each candidate.
Though elections will likely be unfree and unfair (click here to read Enough’s elections paper), the interesting array of candidates, ranging in religious, ethnic, and regional backgrounds, will be worth keeping an eye on as the campaigning period starts up in just over two weeks.
Photo: Yasir Arman, SPLM presidential candidate. (AFP)