Both former president Carter and Sudan’s leading Islamist rebel group believe next month’s elections should be postponed.

OK, it’s not that simple. The Justice and Equality Movement, whose forces came thisclose to Khartoum in a daring and pointless raid two years ago, is demanding a freeze on Sudan’s elections and a new national census as a precondition to  a final peace deal with the Sudanese government.

The Carter Center, which has a long history in Sudan, is monitoring what will be the country’s first competitive election since 1986 (president and field marshal Omar Hassan al Bashir took power in a 1989 coup by Islamist military officers).

In a report released today, the Center says the election process “remains at risk on multiple fronts.” Whenever it happens, Africa’s biggest country will have an extremely complex election day, with more than 16,000 candidates from 72 political parties standing for 1,841 parliamentary and executive seats. And with weeks to go the voting roll is still incomplete – hundreds of thousands of names are missing.

The Carter communique doesn’t advocate another election delay. That would be impolitic. Instead it telegraphs that a another postponement (the elections were originally scheduled for June 2009) wouldn’t necessarily rankle the international community.

Logistical preparations are straining the limited capacity of the … [National Election Commission]. With a series of delays and changes in polling procedures, a minor delay in polling for operational purposes may be required. The Center’s statement urged the NEC to make a decision as quickly as possible about any delay in the election date so that all stakeholders have time to adjust plans.
In deciding whether to adjust the electoral calendar for operational reasons, the political parties should respect the NEC’s authority as the administrating body of the election.

The elections are mandated by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended Sudan’s decades-long north-south civil war. Next year the south will vote in a “unity” referendum that will result in its secession and independence from Sudan.

That is, if the two sides don’t go to war first.