Sudan opposition parties threaten vote boycott

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's main opposition parties have demanded changes to laws they say will prevent them campaigning freely in next year's elections and will boycott the vote if no action is taken, politicians said on Saturday.

The April elections are part of a 2005 peace deal between north and south Sudan that called for democratization of Africa's biggest country after civil war.

They will be Sudan's first free ballot for more than two decades, covering the presidency, parliament and other bodies.

"We have an ultimatum that all those laws should be amended before the elections ... (or) we will boycott the elections," Saddiq Yousif, a leader of the Communist Party, told Reuters.

Yousif said several laws needed to be changed in particular a security law and a clause in the criminal procedure law that allows governors to dissolve meetings.

Sudan's security law has been criticized by human rights groups for restricting freedom of expression.

"We should be able to have our meetings without permission," Yousif said, adding laws should be changed by mid-October but that the president should order key parts suspended immediately.

Opposition parties hold seats in parliament under the 2005 north-south agreement. But the assembly is dominated by members from the ruling coalition of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's northern based National Congress Party and the southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).

The opposition grouping, which made the call for changes after a meeting on Saturday, comprises 24 parties, including leading groups such as the Umma Party, the National Unionist Party and the Sudanese National Popular Congress Party.

Experts have said Sudan's 2010 elections will be a challenge to implement because of a conflict in the western Darfur region, rising violence in the south and tense relations between the National Congress Party and the SPLM.

Yousif said police and security officials stopped a political party meeting from taking place on Thursday, refusing to let members even set out chairs.

"We are going to hold meetings outside. We are going to bring people to protect these meetings. We are going to fight," Ibrahim al-Sheikh from the opposition Sudanese National Popular Congress Party said. "Unless we change the laws: no freedom, no elections."

More than 2 million died in Sudan's north-south war that ended with the 2005 deal. It is separate from the continuing conflict in Darfur which erupted in 2003.