ELECTION IN SUDAN

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28524, 1 March 1958, Page 16

ELECTION IN SUDAN

Voters Marked With Nitrate

(NZ. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 pjn.) KHARTOUM, February 27. Long, patient queues of* men formed outside polling booths today as voting began in the Sudan’s first general elections since the country became independent in 1956. Police with trunchons and fixed bayonets guarded the booths as the first of the 2,500,000 eligible Sudanese went to the polls and had their thumbs marked with silver nitrate to prevent double voting. Polling will be staggered. The last polling day is March 8 and counting begins on March 10. The election is to fill 173 seats in the House of Representatives and 30 seats of the partly-nomin-ated Senate in which there are altogether 50 seats. Voting began in Khartoum at 7 am. There was little discussion and little apparent animation.

At Juba Juba, capital of Equatoria Province, voters included almost nude jungle tribesmen who had undertaken the long journey by canoe or on foot In the North-East Sudan, above the 22nd Parallel—the area claimed by Egypt—ballot boxes were placed in huts to allow troops sent to the territory to vote at their emergency stations. Sudanese Army patrols have been sent to the border to guard against possible Egyptian infiltration. A company of Egyptian troops entrenched at Abu Ramadi, 80 miles inside the disputed area, withdrew across the border on Tuesday.