Lack of Sudan voter awareness a major concern: EU

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A lack of Sudanese voter education is the major concern for the European Union's chief elections observer, who launched her mission on Thursday to monitor Sudan's first multi-party polls in 24 years.

Veronique De Keyser, a member of the European Parliament, will lead more than 130 observers from 22 countries to assess the presidential and legislative elections in April, key for a 2005 north-south peace deal which ended more than 20 years of bloody civil war and promised democratic transformation.

"If the people don't understand really what is the meaning of the vote this could be for me at least the major trap, the major pitfall," she told reporters in Khartoum.

"And it's difficult because ... some people have never voted," she said, stressing this was not deliberate and that the EU has pledged money for voter education.

"So at the beginning of the process we have to admit that it will not be perfect but we have to pay attention to that," she said, adding the road to democracy was long.

Analysts have described the elections as some of the most complex in the world, with at least six different votes and likely more than 1,000 different ballot papers.

De Keyser said the EU formed the observer mission as soon as they received an invitation from Sudan's National Elections Commission.

Some Sudanese opposition have questioned whether they were coming too late and were only legitimising an already flawed vote, because they missed the key registration period.

But De Keyser said they could document past problems and that they could not come before being invited by authorities.