Sudan’s National Election Commission (NEC) disclosed that 102 candidates had withdrawn from the general elections scheduled for April.
- A member of the voting staff takes fingerprint of a southern Sudanese woman voter at a polling station in Hajj Yousef Locality, Khartoum January 14 2011 (Reuters)
Last January, the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) warned that members who seek to run independently in the country’s upcoming general elections will be held accountable.
NCP also dispatched some party officials to various states to dissuade the party’s members from running as independents in the poll.
Hamid Mumtaz, political secretary of the NCP said the majority of party members who decided to run independently have complied with the rules and pulled out of the elections race.
Leading NCP figure and former minister for culture Mohamed Awad al-Baroodi planned to run against the party’s candidate president Omer Hassan al-Bashir in the presidential elections.
According to the NEC official website, the final number of candidates for the national constituencies reached 1072 nominees while the number of candidates for the regional legislative council was 2235 nominees besides 16 presidential candidates.
The NEC information chamber statistics show that the total number of constituencies reached 1197 constituencies while 102 candidates have withdrawn from the election race.
Candidates who had withdrawn from the national constituencies included 18 candidate in Al-Jazira state, 11 candidates in Kassala state and 10 candidates in the White Nile state.
On the other hand, 276 candidates had withdrawn from the regional constituencies including 31 candidates in Kassala state, 30 candidates in the White Nile state and 30 candidates in Al-Jazira state.
The head of the higher elections committee in Gadaref state, Alsir Ahmed al-Malik, announced that the number of political parties’ candidates who withdrew from the elections reached 26 candidates while 6 independent candidates had withdrawn including one woman.
