Sudan Elections

Despite a simmering civil war, the ruling National Congress party of President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir has won an overwhelming majority of seats in legislative elections boycotted by Sudan's opposition. The main opposition parties refused to participate, saying the government should negotiate an end to the war and restore full political freedom before holding polls.

The joke circulating around the Sudanese capital before Sunday's elections suggested that the only billboard campaign competing with President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir came not from an opposition candidate but from a flashy nonalcoholic beer. The president's inescapable image foreshadows what is likely to unfold over two days of voting: the ruling National Congress Party consolidating power amid an opposition boycott that challenges the credibility of the nation's first serious multiparty elections in 24 years.

The joke circulating around the Sudanese capital before Sunday's elections suggested that the only billboard campaign competing with President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir came not from an opposition candidate but from a flashy nonalcoholic beer. The president's inescapable image foreshadows what is likely to unfold over two days of voting: the ruling National Congress Party consolidating power amid an opposition boycott that challenges the credibility of the nation's first serious multiparty elections in 24 years.

Despite a simmering civil war, the ruling National Congress party of President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir has won an overwhelming majority of seats in legislative elections boycotted by Sudan's opposition. The main opposition parties refused to participate, saying the government should negotiate an end to the war and restore full political freedom before holding polls.

The two centrist parties that were the apparent victors in Sudan's national elections met in Khartoum to work out plans for a unified government. Returns from 217 districts, where polls were open for 12 days, showed the Umma Party gaining 99 seats in the 301-member Constituent Assembly and the Democratic Unionists capturing 63 places.

After five days of voting, the withdrawal of virtually all of the opposition presidential candidates and countless accusations of ballot tampering, voter intimidation and worse, Sudan's flawed elections drew to an unceremonial conclusion last month, while doing little to advance democracy in Africa. Indicted war criminal Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir has maintained his grip on the presidency with 68% of the national vote, and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement will do the same in the south after obtaining 93% of votes in that region.

The U.S. is offering to gradually normalize relations with Sudan if the government in Khartoum settles issues such as the Darfur crisis and carries out elections next year, U.S. and Sudanese diplomats said Friday. Sudan would have to remove obstacles to the deployment of a U.N.-led peacekeeping force, stop violence against civilians in Darfur, release U.S.