The office of the National Congress Party (NCP) in Lagawa Locality in Sudan’s West Kordofan state has been carrying out mass recruitment of citizens into the party. The party is accused of intimidation and threats in order to secure new loyalists.

Sources in Lagawa Locality told Radio Tamazuj that members of NCP led-government have been urging local residents who have nothing to do with politics to pay allegiance to the party. The NCP members are roaming residential areas to prepare their electoral registry for 2015, and are urging people to take a party oath.

The sources accuse the local NCP office of threatening those who refused to show loyalty to the party, labelling neutral people as supporters of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front, which is fighting the government in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile States, according to the same sources.

“Now very may people have already been forcefully sworn in and joined the National Congress Party in fear of their lives,” explained one Lagawa resident.

This follows an announcement by the Sudan Election Commission that it has not yet been informed by the executive branch of the government about any possible postponement of the upcoming general elections in 2015.