Ballots delivered to Nagero, Western Equatoria
Russian crews performed their final maintenance checks as helicopters were dispatched one by one to remote corners of Southern Sudan on 6 April. Heading west to Yambio, the capital of Western Equatoria State, UN Oscar 581 was tasked with delivering ballots and voting materials to Nagero constituency…
Menkerios makes first southern visit
Newly appointed UNMIS Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) Haile Menkerios made a three-day familiarization tour of Southern Sudan beginning 29 March. The SRSG was in the south to orient himself with the humanitarian and security situation, progress on preparations for upcoming…
Elections are step towards democracy, says NEC
Although they may not be perfect, elections were the greatest chance Sudan had to become democratic, commissioners of the National Elections Commission (NEC) told a Khartoum press conference on 10 April. Addressing international and national media at Khartoum's Friendship Hall one day before polling…
Malakal voters hope for post-election peace
There was a definite buzz in the air at the polling centre located at the Abogesesa School in Malakal on the first day of voting in Sudan's historic general election. Excited voters began to queue outside the facility as early as 6 a.m. on Sunday, two hours before the polling centre was scheduled to…
“I will wait until the end”
When Sudan held its last elections over two decades ago, Maria Majok of Warrap State was just a baby on her mother's back. "My mother told me that I was a three-month-old baby when she participated in the elections 24 years back," said an elated Ms. Majok. A student at Kuajok Secondary School and…
Second polling day in Khartoum calm
At a quiet voting station in Khartoum's upscale Riyad area around noon on the second day of Sudan's poll, about five women were sitting in the shade of a tree and some men lingering around. Hayat Saleh, a middle-aged woman wearing a thob (traditional northern Sudanese dress for women), said she had…
A blind voter looks to a bright future in Wau
Balloting in the Western Bahr El Ghazal state capital of Wau began on time Monday morning, and among the voters who went to the polls on Day Two of Sudan's historic general election was Francis Fongo, a blind retiree of 67 who arrived in the company of his grandson at 9:30 a.m. When he heard the…
The view from Central Equatoria State
Lagge James wasn't going to let anything get in the way of exercising his citizen's right to vote in Sudan's 2010 general election. The 26-year-old resident of the Central Equatoria State town of Mangalla stood in line for over six hours on Sunday to cast his ballot at the Ngwak polling station, and…
Volunteering for elections
Taking an afternoon break on the third, rather slow polling day in Dim, a poorer area of Khartoum, volunteer polling staffer Mai El Said was sitting under a tree with a friend. "I wanted to do this for the country," she said, explaining why she was devoting time and energy to handing people ballot…
A town rises from the ashes
The plague of inter-communal violence that affected much of Southern Sudan last year took its toll on the residents of the Upper Nile State town of Bienythiang. Tribal clashes erupted in the predominantly Dinka community of 2,000 last September, killing 13 people including the paramount chief and…
Voting for a peaceful Sudan
Moses Loboyong is no run-of-the-mill first-time voter in Sudan's first national multi-party elections in 24 years. He is a deaf-mute resident of the Central Equatoria State county of Kajo Keji, and when the time came to cast his ballot at the Mondikolok Community Centre polling station, Mr. Loboyong…
The end of the tunnel
Reports of missing voter names from registers in polling stations have been widespread during the last few days of Sudanese elections. Taban Anthony Kenyi, who works for UNMIS in Juba, was among voters who failed to find their names at Buluk polling station in Juba on 11 April, the first day of…