U.S. and European media

April 8, 2023

Reuters: EU pulls Darfur poll observers over safety fears. The European Union  on Wednesday withdrew its election observers from Sudan's Darfur region, saying safety fears were hindering their work. Sudan is days away from what should be its first multi-party presidential, legislative and gubernatorial elections in 24 years, but opposition parties have said the polls in Darfur will be a farce while a seven-year conflict continues in the region. "I have decided to come back with all the team. The six observers who are...in Darfur," Veronique De Keyser, who heads the EU's election mission in Sudan, told reporters. "In some parts of Darfur the violence is terrible. The humanitarians cannot access this area. And if aid cannot access, we cannot access," she told reporters earlier on a one-day trip to the war-torn region.

AFP: Sudan vote credibility marred by opposition, EU pullout. Sudan's opposition Umma party has announced a boycott of Sunday's country's first multiparty elections since 1986, dealing a fresh blow to the credibility of the poll. The standing of the three-day elections had already been weakened by the decision late Tuesday of another opposition party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, to widen its boycott of the vote.

AFP: Sudan's Beshir promises 'free and fair' elections. Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Thursday promised the country's first multi-party elections in over two decades will be 'free and fair', as campaigning for the April 11-13 vote winds down. "The elections will be fair and free and clean and exemplary," Beshir told a large gathering at the site of a massive hydroelectric plant in northern Sudan, marking the project's final phase. They will be clean, because "elections are a religious duty," the Islamist-leaning leader said at the event, which was broadcast on state television.

VOA: Sudan Journalists Lament Lack of Civic Education in Upcoming Polls. In Sudan, some observers fear the public's failure to understand how to vote may impede national elections, scheduled for April 11-13. "Civic education is very poor in Southern Sudan," said Manyang Mayum, a journalist with The Sudan Tribune.  The National Elections Commission, he said, "didn't carry out the necessary civic education." "The majority of people in Southern Sudan are not educated," said Mayum. He said they only know about the main party in the region, the SPLM (Sudan People Liberation Movement) and they have heard about the [ruling] National Congress party. 

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].