The Sudanese elections currently underway were never going to be easy. The figures alone are daunting. In a country where more than two-thirds of the population is illiterate, and where there have been no multiparty elections since 1986, 12 million northerners will potentially fill in 104 million ballots. Another 4 million southerners, voting for the first time since 1953, will have another 50 million votes – for a possible final tally of 150 million votes for two presidencies, 450 seats in the National Assembly in Khartoum, 170 seats in the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly in Juba, 24 state governors and more than 1,000 other posts.

And all this in just three days’ voting (in theory) in 10,230 polling stations (reduced from 20,000).

But these challenges paled overnight, barely two weeks ago, when the main opponent of President Omar al-Bashir, Yasir Arman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), announced that he was withdrawing from the elections because they were rigged – and in Darfur, in the absence of peace, quite meaningless. The presidential elections, moreover, were “made for one person … to save General Bashir from the International Criminal Court” (which, in issuing an arrest warrant for him last year, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, ensured that he would pull every punch to remain in power).

It quickly became apparent the SPLM was hopelessly divided, incapable of agreeing on its electoral strategy: Should it consolidate the South, in advance of a referendum on self-determination next year, or take Bashir on in the North?

Within 24 hours, a coalition of opposition parties announced that it too would boycott the elections, recommended to the Sudanese by the guardians of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended Sudan’s long north-south war. International NGOs and activists weighed in with warnings that voting would have “catastrophic” consequences and said the new “regime” (not just the president) should be denied legitimacy. Despite there being so little time to formulate a new strategy, almost no one saw any virtue in Sudanese citizens exercising the right to vote, for all the flaws in the census and registration processes; in weakening, as much as possible, Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP); and then, if they deemed it necessary, in protesting as they themselves saw fit.

No one asked what the plan was in the event that the elections went ahead despite the boycott – and the NCP won more decisively than it otherwise would have. No one asked how a regime rejected as illegitimate could be persuaded to cooperate in a peaceful transition to two separate states in 2011.

So loud was the international criticism that some opposition leaders took it as a signal that the West now favored a boycott. How wrong they were! Regime change, the elephant in the room, may be hoped for, even longed for – but it is not on the agenda.

The countdown to voting day was chaotic. There was confusion about which parties were boycotting, where, and at what level. Having failed to forge a common front to fight for free and fair elections, the opposition now failed to agree on boycotting them. On the eve of voting, the SPLM leadership in Juba was saying it was contesting everywhere except the presidency; Arman was insisting on a wholesale boycott.

Reaction to the partial boycott that has resulted has been mixed. Darfur’s rebel movements, as divided and fractious as the opposition parties in Khartoum, rejoiced. Southerners panicked, believing that elections that would give Bashir a semblance at least of legitimacy were the trade-off for their referendum. “No more referendum, no more independent South,” said one. “I give up! I cannot believe this,” exclaimed another. “The SPLM has finally handed over power to the NCP!”

Most Sudanese (and all politicians) knew the elections were decided a long time ago – by money – and were going to be marred by irregularities and abuses. Since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed in 2005, neither the NCP, nor the former Southern rebels of the SPLM, nor the international consortium supporting the peace agreement had honored their commitment to make the ballot free and fair, to ensure that the agreement was as much about democratization as about ending the war and giving southerners the right to self-determination. Northerners hoped for a loosening of the NCP’s grip, but knew that they would not get democratic government and the rule of law – even with the SPLM fully engaged.

It is rash to predict “what next” in Sudan, especially in this worst of all possible worlds – with part of the opposition on the sidelines and consensus politics, the only hope of nonviolent partition next year, struggling for survival. But it has been a rash few weeks. So, predictions. There may be violent episodes in Darfur and, when results are announced, in places like Khartoum, Bentiu in the South and Blue Nile in the East. The presidency is a done deal. Sudan will get a national Islamic government – perhaps with some token SPLM ministers for the next year, until the South secedes. If they are lucky, the SPLM and its southern allies will reach 25 percent of seats in the National Assembly, the bare minimum to block constitutional amendments. After a bit of grumbling, most governments will accept the results and refocus on the referendum. Conflict in Darfur will rumble on, overshadowed by concern for the management of separation. The SPLM will split, its original dream of a secular, democratic “New Sudan” dead and buried.

Only NCP hardliners will be happy.

Julie Flint is co-author, with Alex de Waal, of “Darfur: A New History of a Long War,”  published this month by Zed Books. She wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.