SendJuly 7, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese parliament passed today the longtime discussed elections bill, a step considered as crucial for the organization of general elections in the country after the end of the interim period in 2009.
- Women demonstrate outside parliament against a new election law in Khartoum, July 7, 2008. (Reuters)
The National Elections Act of 2008 was approved by 350 votes and 14 opposed, while two legislators abstained. The total MPs who participated in the vote is 366.
The law lays the basis to run the first fair elections in the country since the Islamist coup d’Etat of 1989 by adopting a mixed electoral system. 60 per cent of the 450 MPs will be chosen through the majority elect in their geographical constituencies. It also guarantees 25% of the parliamentary seats to women who will be elected through the proportional representation with other 15% of the MPs.
The new law organizes the holding of general elections in the country at three levels, including presidential election and elections for the federal parliament and regional legislative chambers, while voters in southern Sudan have also to elect the president of the government there.
The bill sets 4 percent minimum vote needed for any party to enter parliament through the proportional representation and requires for candidates at presidential elections to get at least 200 endorsements from 18 of Sudan’s 25 states.
The New law enfranchises all Sudanese citizens over the age of 18. Candidates for election must be over the age of 40 and have no criminal record.
Independent candidates need the signatures of at least 100 local supporters.
Elections will be held in the period from January to April 2009.
The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed by National Congress Party and the SPLM after two-decade civil war, calls for elections no later than 2009. Under the timetable of the accords, the electoral legislation should have been in place by January 2006, making the law two and a half years late.
Under the interim national constitution, set up after the 2005 peace agreement, all current MPs are appointed.
The two major innovation of this law are, the adoption of the partial proportional representation and the dedication of 25% of the parliamentary seats to women.
However, some opposition parties, as the National Democratic Alliance, did not support the law, criticizing several components that they claim hurt their chances at winning seats in future elections.
Also Sudanese women demonstrated today against using a separate list of women candidates for the election of 25 percent of the 448 parliamentary seats allocated for women. They would have preferred to have the women on the main party lists.
"We are not as different as women we are different as political parties," Mariam al-Mahdi, from the opposition Umma Party told Reuters.
Complete democratic transformation in Sudan would also require major legal reform elsewhere, such as media and national security legislation.
"The press and media law, the national security law and even the criminal laws much be changed," said Yasir Arman, the deputy secretary general of the SPLM and member of parliament. "We cannot have free and fair elections without having new laws".
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