Opposition party urged not to monitor elections

The opposition Democratic Forces Front (DFF) has called on the US-based Carter Center, which supports democratisation and conflict resolution processes, to refrain from monitoring the Sudanese general elections scheduled for October on the basis that “elections organised by a totalitarian regime cannot be fair”, AFP reported. DFF leader Ghazi Suleiman said President Omar al-Bashir had invited a delegation from the Carter Center to monitor the elections when it visited Khartoum to discuss implementation of a December agreemeent to normalise relations between Sudan and Uganda. Suleiman told reporters that he and other party officials had met members of the Carter Center delegation on Tuesday, telling them that monitoring elections under the current regime “means consolidation of that dictatorship,” the report said.