Sudan parties report voter registration fraud

Khartoum, 09 Nov-(ANA)-Sudan's political parties have accused each other of widespread fraud and intimidation as voters began registering for the nation's first multi-party elections in 24 years due next April.

The reports underlined a growing rift between the two main parties in the coalition government which fought each other in a two-decade civil war ending in a 2005 peace deal.

Opposition political party monitors told Reuters they had evidence of intimidation, buying of votes and other irregularities by Sudan's dominant National Congress Party (NCP), headed by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a northerner.

Bashir's NCP dismissed the opposition allegations and accused the junior coalition partner, the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), of trying to sabotage the elections. NCP supporters had been tortured in the south, it said. (ANA)

FA/ANA/09 November 2009-----