HARTOUM: The Sudanese people began voting Sunday in an election that will decide whether President Omar al-Bashir wins another term despite his indictment on charges he committed international war crimes in Darfur.

But voters were left with few alternatives after al-Bashir's main challengers boycotted the race, claiming it was not fair. In addition to the president, the country was also electing a national parliament, local governors and parliaments and president of the semiautonomous government of South Sudan.

The elections, which run through Tuesday, are supposed to be an essential step in a 2005 peace plan that ended two decades of a civil war between the north and south, a conflict that claimed some 2 million lives.

The vote was meant to kick-start a transformation to a democratically elected government that would prepare the ground for a crucial referendum next year on whether southern Sudan forms an independent nation.

There were also hopes that the first multiparty elections in nearly a quarter century would begin a process of healing in the impoverished country ripped apart by the north-south civil war and the seven-year conflict in the western region of Darfur, which left an estimated 300,000 dead and millions displaced since 2003.

Al-Bashir is expected to win easily after two major parties, including the southerners, decided to pull out fully or partially. They protested that the process lacks credibility and was flawed from the start.

The opposition complained the National Election Commission is biased in favor of the government, the ruling party has used state resources in the campaign and that the number of polling stations nationwide was cut in half from 20,000, making it harder for those in remote villages to vote.

They called for a delay, but the government went ahead anyway.

''This is the first time that the party that carried out a coup organizes elections,'' said Sarah Nugdallah, the head of the political bureau of the Umma party, a major northern opposition group which is boycotting. Al-Bashir came to power in a 1989 coup. -AP