Africa’s biggest country has long been one of its most ungovernable. For a start, it is a grossly artificial, colonial creation. The Muslim Arabs in the north, who have run Sudan since it broke free from Britain in 1956, have little in common with their blacker-skinned Christian and animist compatriots in the south, whom they have periodically enslaved over the centuries. During more than four decades of strife since the British left, at least 2m southerners have been killed. More recently the government in Khartoum, under President Omar al-Bashir, has bludgeoned the disaffected inhabitants of the western region of Darfur since the start of a rebellion in 2003, killing some 300,000 of them and displacing another 3m. Just in the west and the south together, more than 9m people depend on food handouts from abroad. Mr Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court at The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n
It is hardly surprising, then, that the election for parliament and president and a slew of other bodies due to take place on April 11th is likely to be horribly flawed….In the past year or so, Mr Bashir\u2019s ruling party has been stacking the odds in its own favour. The main southern party has withdrawn its candidate for the presidency and is refusing to compete for most of parliament\u2019s northern seats. The main opposition in the north says it will pull out altogether. The brutal Mr Bashir, who came to power in a coup in 1989, is almost sure to retain the presidency. The conundrum of whether Western governments must continue to treat with an ICC indictee in the hope of sustaining a wider peace will be awkwardly unresolved. Foreign governments that have given money to finance the polls no longer hope for \u201cfree and fair\u201d\u009d elections but ask that they be minimally \u201ccredible\u201d\u009d.<\/p>\n
The election may still be postponed. Yet, despite all these flaws, it is to be hoped that it will go ahead. If it does, the outside world should hold its nose and accept the result.<\/p>\n