Sudan went ahead to vote on Monday at the start of a three-day election even as the main opposition parties stayed away from the polling stations.
The vote which President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is expected to win to extend his quarter-century in power saw to only a handful of voters.
The vote comes a few days after the government freed Sudan opposition leader Farouk Abu after more than four months in jail in Sudan’s capital Khartoum.
Farouk was arrested alongside a human rights activist in December after signing a unity agreement with a rebel group in an alliance aimed at uniting opposition to President Omar al-Bashir’s 25-year rule.
The opposition says it will shun the elections in which Bashir’s win is given, citing deteriorating freedoms and a lack of progress towards national reconciliation in Bashir’s term.
Bashir has however campaigned on improving the economy and warned against a change in government while the region is embroiled in violence from Libya to Yemen.
