Police, Protesters Clash in South Sudan; 2 Killed

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 24, 2010

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Security forces in south Sudan clashed with protesters upset with results from the country’s recent elections, leaving at least two people dead and wounding four more, a United Nations official said Saturday.

The violence comes amid fears that a flawed vote in Sudan’s elections earlier this month — the country’s first multiparty vote in decades — could fuel violence in the conflict-strewn nation. The vote took place on the presidential, parliamentary and local levels.

The clashes erupted Friday after some 100 protesters took to the streets in Bentiu, the capital of the oil-rich Unity state, following an announcement by local election officials that an independent candidate in the race for the state governor’s post, Angelina Teny, had lost, said David Gressly, the U.N. regional coordinator for south Sudan.

Teny, a former federal state minister in the Ministry of Energy and Mining, was beaten by Taban Deng Gai, the incumbent.

Gressly said the protesters were upset the results were announced locally instead of by national officials in Khartoum, and  »must have suspected that something was procedurally wrong. »

Sudan’s elections have been marred by allegations of fraud and vote rigging, and international monitors have said the vote failed to live up to international standards.

Yohanis Pok, a spokesman for Teny’s campaign, said Teny has appealed to her supporters to remain calm and said she would not challenge the results in the courts, even though she felt cheated.

Gressly said authorities had deployed additional security forces to Bentiu and that the city was calm Saturday.

Voting in the elections began April 11, but was extended through to April 15 after widespread complaints about the process. Election monitors say voting was delayed in some parts of the country, particularly in the impoverished south. There were reports some polling stations had been moved without notice, voter registries or other crucial equipment was missing and observers were not allowed in to witness the process.

The local, national and presidential elections were agreed to under a 2005 peace deal that ended 21 years of a bloody north-south civil war. The vote was intended to bring to power a democratically elected government for the impoverished country and prepare for a referendum next year on independence for southern Sudan

Two Killed In South Sudan Election Clash – U.N.

REUTERS

April 23, 2010

JUBA, Sudan (Reuters) – At least two people were killed during a clash between security forces and supporters of an independent candidate in elections in south Sudan’s oil-producing Unity state on Friday, the United Nations said.

The deaths were the first serious violence reported during the announcement of results in Sudan’s complex presidential, legislative and gubernatorial ballots.

Sudan is in the closing stages of its first open polls in 24 years, a process already marred by delays, boycotts and opposition accusations of widespread vote rigging.

The elections, set up under a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war, were designed to help transform Africa’s largest nation into a democracy.

The violence erupted in the state capital Bentiu after a radio announcement said Angelina Teny had lost the race to become Unity governor to incumbent Taban Deng Gai, a member of Teny’s campaign team told Reuters, asking not to be named.

« From what I understand there was some sort of a demonstration over a gubernatorial radio announcement, » U.N. regional coordinator for southern Sudan David Gressly told Reuters.

« It’s not clear how it happened but there seems to have been some shooting and two people were killed and four were wounded. »

Gressly said it appeared security forces had tried to disperse the crowd. The dead and injured were all civilians, he added.

Teny, the wife of South Sudan’s Vice President Riek Machar, told Reuters she had reports one of the injured people died later from their wounds.

Sudan’s National Elections Commission (NEC) announced late on Friday that Gai, from the south’s dominant Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), won the gubernatorial race with 137,636 votes, with Teny in second place with 63,500 votes.

Teny said that she would contest the outcome. During the election period she complained her agents had been harassed and arrested.

Teny was running as an independent after failing to get the SPLM nomination.

Southern officials told Reuters they were tightening security in two other southern states where independents ran against SPLM candidates.

Earlier on Friday, SPLM secretary general Pagan Amum told reporters the party won overwhelming victories at all levels of elections in the south.

The 2005 accord set up a semi-autonomous southern government and promised a referendum on southern secession in 2011.

Early results suggest Sudan’s incumbent president Omar Hassan al-Bashir will keep the top job while his northern National Congress Party will retain control of the national assembly.

~ par Alain Bertho sur 25 avril 2010.

Publié dans émeutes, riots