KHARTOUM: Sudan said Sunday the northern ruling party won an election for governor in the north's main oil state after a vote the south said was rigged, creating a fresh flashpoint before southern secession in July. South Kordofan lies on the border with the south and holds most of what will remain of the north's oil output after the south splits away. The state is also home to many fighters who sided against the north in a civil war that ended in 2005. The National Election Commission said the governor's race was won by the ruling National Congress Party's Ahmed Haroun, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court over charges of war crimes in the Darfur region in the west of Sudan. “Ahmed Haroun is elected as governor,” a member of the commission, Mukhtar Elassum, told reporters. Analysts fear violence could erupt after the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement said Friday it would withdraw from the South Kordofan vote because it considered it to be rigged. Many of the state's population fought alongside southern rebels during the civil war and fear they will be targeted in the new, separate north Sudan. The vote held almost two weeks ago was delayed from April last year after the SPLM accused Khartoum of rigging a census. South Sudan voted to declare independence from Khartoum in a January referendum promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with the north. Khartoum will lose control of up to 75 percent of the country's 500,000 barrels per day oil output when the south leaves. Southern Kordofan holds the most productive fields left in the north. It is also key to Khartoum because it borders Darfur and the disputed, oil-producing Abyei region, another north-south flashpoint in the build-up to secession. Sudan's President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, also wanted by the world criminal court on war crimes charges, held onto power in last year's election and his NCP won an overwhelming victory in the north. The SPLM dominated the south.
