SUDAN: Sudan's President al-Bashir visits a former civil war zone as he campaigns for the country's first democratic election in 24 years

Record ID: 345725

  • Title: SUDAN: Sudan's President al-Bashir visits a former civil war zone as he campaigns for the country's first democratic election in 24 years
  • Date: 26th March 2010
  • Summary: KADUGLI, SOUTH KORDOFAN, SUDAN (MARCH 24, 2010) (REUTERS) SUDANESE PRESIDENT OMAR AL-BASHIR AND KADUGLI GOVERNOR AHMED HAROUN WAVING TO SUPPORTERS FROM TRUCK SINGER ENTERTAINING THE CROWD
  • Embargoed: 10th April 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Sudan
  • Country: Sudan
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA32FYFBDLK31Z1XCTAOBCGEGK9
  • Story Text: Sudan's President al-Bashir visits a former civil war zone as he campaigns for the country's first democratic election in 24 years.
    Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir took his whirlwind election campaign on Wednesday (March 24) to one of the areas worst hit by 22 years of civil war, launching a big power project at a sometimes chaotic rally.
    Thousands of cheering supporters greeted him as he campaigned for Sudan's first democratic polls in 24 years in Kadugli, capital of South Kordofan state.
    Bashir hopes to legitimise his government by winning next month's elections, defying an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest for war crimes in the troubled western Darfur region.
    South Kordofan played a leading role in negotiations for a separate referendum to be held next year, when southern Sudan will decide whether to secede from the nation.
    During years of negotiations, Bashir's National Congress Party and the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) struggled to agree on whether the state would vote with the south in the referendum, or remain in the north.
    Under a compromise in a 2005 peace deal to end the north-south civil war, a popular consultation process will be held, giving South Kordofan's residents the chance to choose further autonomy from the central government.
    Sudan's civil war claimed two million lives and drove more than four million people from their homes.
    At Wednesday's rally, the thousands who came to see Bashir were happy the years of war were over.
    Bashir told them: "You have lived here during some difficult days, I ask God not to let another war break out here. We survived during the war, there was hunger and sickness. Today we live and enjoy peaceful co-existence."
    Bashir's rally was colourful if unruly. Supporters fashioned patterns out of coloured paper saying "South Kordofan - peace", while schoolchildren marched in formation and camels were draped in pictures of Bashir and a tree, his party's symbol.
    On the campaign trail, Bashir is making more than 31 visits to Sudan's regions in 54 days, exhausting his big team of protocol and security staff and dwarfing similar efforts by opposition parties.
    Accusations of electoral fraud are growing and ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said on Tuesday that monitoring the polls would be like monitoring a vote in Nazi Germany.
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