Residents of Juba, Southern Sudan, registering to vote. (Photo Courtesy UN Photo/Tim McKulka)

Sudan's national elections scheduled for April 2010 will be neither free nor fair absent significant international pressure on the ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, to change the electoral landscape. The Enough Project's latest strategy paper, "Stealing an election in Slow Motion: Time for Real Consequences," argues that the Obama administration must immediately impose consequences on the NCP and be prepared not to recognize the outcome if elections are held in the current climate of violence and political intimidation.

"The first step in ramping up meaningful pressure would be for the U.S. to suspend its support for anything but the local election monitors who will help determine the credibility--or lack thereof--of the process ," said John Prendergast, Enough's founder and the report's author. "Business as usual has to end.  There should be no veneer of legitimacy for a process that lacks any credibility."

The recent crackdown by the NCP on senior opposition politicians and the use of tear-gas on pro-democracy protesters demonstrates in no uncertain terms that the basic requirements of credible elections have not been met.  "The U.S. and other donors to the electoral process need to stand up and conclude that the Emperor is as naked as he ever was, and blow the whistle now on this deadly charade," says Prendergast.

Credible elections in Darfur are impossible given rampant insecurity and attacks on civilians and the displacement of the majority of Darfur's population, and elections in the South could intensify inter-communal and political tensions. "A stolen election would be the beginning of the end for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement," argues Prendergast.  "The NCP will almost certainly exploit what it would quickly claim was newfound 'democratic legitimacy' to prevent southern Sudanese from holding the self-determination referendum scheduled for 2011. If that happens, it would be fanciful to think that anything short of full-scale national war would result."

"If nothing changes before April, U.S. taxpayers will have spent nearly $100 million to support the election of an indicted war-criminal and legitimize the iron-fisted rule of one of the world's most oppressive regimes," says Enough Executive Director John Norris. "In this context, it is time to alter course in bold and specific ways in order to avert what could be the deadliest conflagration in Sudan's war-torn post-colonial history."

Read the strategy paper.