Nairobi/Khartoum  - The Sudanese election commission has put back both the presidential and the parliamentary elections planned for 2009 until next year, local media have reported.

The Sudan Tribune quoted Abdellah Ahmed Abdellah, deputy chairman of Sudans National Electoral Commission as saying on Friday that the commission had decided to postpone both polls by seven months, to February 2010.

Sudan's last general election was in April 1986. In the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the decades-long civil war between the north and south of Sudan, a general election by July 2009 at the latest had been promised.

Prior to the election commission's decision, skeptics had doubted whether the slated votes could in fact be held in time. The results of a census, which would allow the creation of accurate voting lists, have not yet been published.

In addition, how free and fair elections could be held in the troubled Darfur region is not clear. (dpa)