Darfur lawyers call for boycott of ‘rigged’ Bar elections

The Democratic Alliance of Lawyers in Nyala, capital of South Darfur, decided in a statement on Tuesday to boycott the elections of the Lawyers Bar Association. The lawyers say that the elections, scheduled for the end of December, are lacking standards of fairness and that the outcome is known in advance. The lawyers appealed to the Democratic Alliance of Lawyers in Khartoum to boycott what they called “absurd elections”. They said in the statement that they addressed the Alliance with a note asking that voting should take place in Nyala due to the circumstances of Darfur, and the difficulty associated with traveling to Khartoum because of the high prices of airline tickets. The lawyers added that a meeting took place, attended by the governor of South Darfur, the Minister of Finance, and the commissioner of Nyala. The employees of the ruling party were granted two-way tickets to travel to Khartoum in order to cast their ballots. They each were also given SDG200 ($35) for expenses, after taking the Oath of Allegiance to vote for the list of the National Congress Party (NCP). According to the statement, the lawyers: “.. see in these circumstances that the elections scheduled to take place will be unfair like the previous ones and the NCP will use all its devious methods to declare itself a winner. This is why we have decided to refrain from participating in the elections which are lacking the standards of integrity and fairness, and whose outcome is known in advance”. “We appeal to our colleagues in the Democratic Alliance of Lawyers in Khartoum  to boycott the elections, to make our Democratic Alliance the true voice of the will of lawyers who are working to defend the honour of the profession and its independence – to play our professional part in the defence of rights and freedoms and strive to topple the regime until we recover our Alliance forum and all other forums, in freedom, and in a realised democracy and presence of the rule of law’.