This month, Sudan’s first multiparty elections since 1986 fulfilled a major requirement of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the 22-year, north-south civil war, giving millions of Sudanese the first opportunity in their lives to vote. The election in-cluded contests for national, state, and southern Sudan legislatures, state governors, president of Sudan, and president of the regional Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS).
USAID supported key areas of the electoral process—technical and material support for election administration, including training of registration and polling staff and supply of polling materials; civic participation, including voter education, political party capacity building, media assistance, and support to Sudanese organizations for domestic election observation; international election observation; and census administration prior to the elections.
In preliminary statements issued shortly after the end of the polling period, some international observer missions, including The Carter Center—which is funded by a community of donors including USAID—and the European Union said the process did not meet international standards. These groups also noted some positive elements of the elections, including relatively high levels of participa-tion by citizens, civil society, and political parties, as well as the importance of the elections as a key ele-ment of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
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