U.S. and European media

April 9, 2023

AFP: Sudan parties on last day of campaigning before vote. Sudanese political parties addressed supporters on Friday on the last day of general election campaigning, as President Omar al-Beshir, looking assured of re-election, makes a final push for parliamentary seats. "We will build roads to Geneina (in west Sudan). We have built a road that reaches the border of Ethiopia (in the east) ... We are not focused on just one region, we are working for balanced development," Beshir told a rally in Dalgo, north Sudan.

Reuters: Sudan polls to start despite fraud claims, boycotts. Sudan's first multi-party elections in 24 years are on track to start on Sunday, with Khartoum dismissing a U.S. suggestion that it would consider supporting a brief delay to ensure greater stability. Incumbent President Omar Hassan al-Bashir hopes a win in the complex presidential, legislative and gubernatorial polls would legitimise his government, in defiance of an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest for war crimes in Darfur. A Bashir victory is almost certain after his two main rivals withdrew, alleging widespread fraud, but it would be overshadowed by questions over the elections' credibility.

BBC: Sudan's Vice-President Salva Kiir boycotts elections. (VIDEO) In a special Hardtalk interview, Zeinab Badawi is in Juba, Southern Sudan. This autonomous, oil rich region is one of the poorest on Earth and is seeking independence after decades of war with Khartoum. Salva Kiir is the President of Southern Sudan and Vice president of Sudan. His party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, has declared a boycott of much of the country in the upcoming elections. What does this mean for the credibility of Sudan's first general elections in two decades?

BBC: Sudan's historic election own-goal. Sudan's elections risk going down in the history books for all the wrong reasons. The three-day polls starting on Sunday had been trumpeted as the first genuine multiparty elections in the country since 1986 - a vote that would achieve, in the much-used phrase, a "democratic transformation." But a succession of withdrawals by political heavyweights, aghast at alleged rigging, has leached much of the credibility from the elections.

TIME: South Sudan: Can This Be the World's Newest Nation? How can southern Sudan become an independent nation when it possesses so little of what defines one? Many aid workers and development experts in Juba doubt it can. They have coined a new term to describe its unique status: pre-failed state. In public, the international community tries to be more upbeat. But optimism is hard with so little time to prepare for separation.

AP: Emaciated children signal crisis in southern Sudan. Three-day-old Odong Obong lay in the hospital bed, his pencil-thin arms almost motionless and his shriveled, gaunt face resembling that of an elderly man. Emaciated babies and young children throughout the ward bore the signs of hunger: exposed ribs and distended stomachs. Outside, old villagers reclined motionless in the shade, too frail to walk. The U.N. calls this the "hungriest place on Earth" after years of drought and conflict, with aid agencies already feeding 80,000 people here. A doctor says the worst is yet to come.

The following piece by Sean Brooks was featured in The New Republic: Already Stolen. In February, as part of a delegation from the Save Darfur Coalition, I met Mustafa Ismail in Khartoum. Ismail is the country's former foreign minister and current presidential adviser to President Omar Al Bashir. He thanked us for our "timely visit," then proceeded to speak almost uninterrupted for close to an hour about the Sudanese regime's new commitment to democracy, peace, and development. To that end, he urged the international community to endorse the country's upcoming nationwide elections and stop "inflaming" the situation in Sudan with false accusations. Now, with the Sudanese vote set to begin this weekend, the Obama administration seems to be doing exactly what Ismail had wanted.

The Darfur Daily News is a service of the Save Darfur Coalition. To subscribe to the Daily News, please email [email protected]. For media inquiries, please contact Ashley Roberts at (202) 478-6181, or [email protected].