KHARTOUM, Sudan, April 11 (UPI) -- Sudanese voters, using a system officials said was intended to avert fraud, cast ballots Sunday in the country's first multiparty elections since 1986.
Many of the country's more than 16 million registered voters cast ballots in presidential, parliamentary and state assembly elections in the first of three days of polling, Radio France Internationale reported.
The election, which came as a result of the deal that ended the war between northern and southern Sudan, has been marred by fraud accusations and logistical glitches.
An estimated 100,000 police officers were on hand to prevent violence at polling places, and hundreds of international election observers monitored voters as they cast ballots, many for the first time in their lives.
The BBC reported several key parties and politicians opposed to President Omar al-Bashir, who has ruled Sudan since 1989, were boycotting the election over fraud concerns.
Balloting went smoothly in the capital, Khartoum, but in southern Sudan and elsewhere, confusion among election workers, missing ballots and delayed openings were reported.
"I believe the National Election Commission has done a good job although there might be some slow delivery of material, but they have three days to correct that," former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center is monitoring the election, told reporters.
In semi-autonomous South Sudan, President Salva Kiir is running against former Foreign Minister Lam Akol, the leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army. Akol said he voted for the first time in his life and hoped the election would bring the "formation of a democratic process in South Sudan."
