It's a 'Sham,' Alright

Sudan has been holding an election of sorts, one that is attended by the sort of brutality we have come to expect from the wretched machete-replete nation. In an astonishing display of soft-peddling (and jihad-ignoring), a timesonline scribbler describes the goings-on as--wait for it--"shambolic":

Mandelina Nyi-bo folds her long limbs around the youngest of her six children, a nine-month-old girl, and talks about the day that her husband was killed. 

“They came with guns to attack our village. They shot people randomly and killed many. My husband was among them,” she said.

After the survivors fled, the raiders — from a neighbouring cattle-herding community — destroyed their houses and grain stores.

Now Mrs Nyi-bo lives in a grass hut in a clearing in a forest that hides her and 7,000 others forced from their homes in recent months.

One of Africa’s longest and bloodiest civil wars ended five years ago and Sudan’s transition to peace and democracy was supposed to be capped by three days of national elections starting tomorrow. But what is happening here looks little like either peace or democracy.

In the western region of Darfur the fighting that sputters on caused EU election observers to pull out this week, citing security fears. The withdrawal means that a free vote is impossible.

In the crushingly poor south, the kinds of clashes that killed Mrs Nyi-bo’s husband have slaughtered at least 2,000 in the past year, more than in Darfur during the same period.

In the north, analysts, activists and opposition politicians allege that President al-Bashir, 66, has rigged, intimidated and gerrymandered his way to a sure-fire victory.

The shambolic final days before the first multi-party election in 24 years have laid bare the unfixable divisions in Africa’s largest country...

To be clear: the TTC is "shambolic"; London's mayor is "shambolic". Sudan, on the other hand, is flat out barbaric.