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A coalition of professional associations in Sudan has again called for a march on the eve of the country’s 63rd anniversary of independence to demand that President Omar al-Bashir step down immediately.

In a statement on Friday, the Association of Sudanese Professionals, an umbrella coalition of professional unions, said the march would commence on Monday from Qandil Square in the capital city Khartoum to the presidential palace.

“Again, we demand Bashir’s immediate resignation … (and the) formation of a transitional government. We ask all our citizens to dedicate this day and night to protesting and to making it a special welcome of the New Year,” said the coalition in its statement.

The coalition had organised a similar march to the presidential palace on December 25, when riot police used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse the crowds of several hundreds of protesters.

A wave of demonstrations began across much of Sudan on December 19, first against a rise in prices but later against the government of Bashir, who has been in power since a 1989 military coup.

The protests have coincided with worsening economic conditions, a currency devaluation, fuel shortages and a hike in the price of bread.

At least 19 people have been killed in the protests, according to government estimates, but Amnesty International puts the death toll at 37 since the demonstrations began.

Several journalists, activists and opposition leaders, including chief of the Sudanese Congress Party Omar el-Digeir and senior leader of Sudan’s Communist Party Siddiq Youssef, have been arrested according to civil society groups.

The head of the media office at the National Intelligence and Security Service has denied knowledge of the arrests.

Strikes continue

In solidarity with the demonstrations, the Sudanese Journalists Network announced on Thursday a three-day strike against what it described as “the Sudanese government’s crackdown on journalists”.

In a statement, the network said the strike was also in response to the detention of a group of its members who held a sit-in outside the office of independent newspaper al-Tayyar. Two journalists among the detainees were reportedly later released.

The announcement also came after Sudanese doctors launched an indefinite strike on Monday, while trade unions and other professional associations called for a nationwide work stoppage.

“The doctors’ strike will continue until we see a peaceful handover of power. We are not putting any patients at risk as all emergency cases are being treated,” Sara Abdelgalil, President of the Sudanese Doctor’s Union in the UK, told Al Jazeera.

“The journalists’ network has joined us and we hope that more professionals will do so as well,” she added.

On Saturday, the Sudanese Doctors’ Union published on its Facebook Page a list of at least 40 hospitals and medical centres across the country that are part of the strike.

According to Abdelgalil and a statement published by the Doctors’ Union, its chairman, Ahmed al-Shaikh, was arrested during the protests on Tuesday.

“His family tells us he is being held in Khartoum’s Kobar Jail along with the union’s vice-president,” said Abdelgalil.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify these reports.

Commenting on the march planned for Monday, Abdelgalil said: “We [Sudanese doctors] are very worried about the number of casualties that may arise from the protests planned for December 31.

“Cases received at hospitals over the past week have shown many gunshot wounds to the head, neck and chest. Peaceful protesters are being targeted to be killed.”

Sudan’s top Islamist party, a member of Bashir’s government, called on Wednesday for a probe into the killings of protesters.

Although initially the protests appeared to be tied to a recent increase in the price of a loaf of bread from one Sudanese pound to three, analysts believe the people’s grievances run deeper than that.

“The trigger of the protests was the rise in bread prices, but underlying these protests is a long-standing public discontent over the economic and political policies of Bashir’s regime,” Mohamed Osman, an independent Sudanese analyst, told Al Jazeera earlier this week.

Earlier this week, the Sudanese government affirmed it will carry out economic reforms to “ensure a decent living for citizens”, according to the official Sudan news agency, in its first comment since the protests began.

The ruling National Congress Party said it understands the people’s anger over the economic situation, but spokesman Ibrahim el-Sadik accused Israel and “left-wing parties” of being behind the protests.

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Kinshasa, DRC – Millions of voters in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will head to the polls tomorrow to choose a successor to long-time President Joseph Kabila.

President Kabila is stepping down after ruling the mineral-rich country for 17 years and his handpicked successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, is one of 21 candidates competing for the country’s top job.

What are the five things you should know about DRC and its election?

Peaceful power transfer?

Kinshasa is trying to buck past trends by ensuring a peaceful transfer of power for the first time since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960.

Kabila, 47, came to power following the assassination of his father by one of his bodyguards in 2001.

Kabila, then 29 years of age, became the world’s youngest leader.

His father was a rebel leader who overthrew the long-serving Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997 with the help of troops from neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda.

Mobutu was a larger-than-life leader known for expensive shopping trips to the French capital, Paris.

The former army chief, came to power in 1965 through a coup backed by former colonial power Belgium.

He overthrew the country’s first democratically elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

Lumumba – a Pan-Africanist – was imprisoned by the Mobutu regime and then executed firing squad, his body chopped up, and dissolved in acid.

Ebola

The central African country is currently in the midst of an ebola outbreak in its eastern parts. The outbreak, declared in August, is the second deadliest in history.

According to the World Health Organization it has claimed more than 330 lives.

The electoral commission (CENI) delayed the December 23 vote by a week in part because of the Ebola outbreak.

On Wednesday, CENI said voting will not take place in Beni and Butembo in the eastern North Kivu province until March 2019 because of the deadly viral disease.

Peace and security

DRC, home to more than 60 percent of the world’s cobalt, continues to face security challenges especially in the eastern part of the country.

Ongoing conflicts in areas like North Kivu, Ituri, and Kasai provinces have uprooted hundreds of thousands.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, the conflict displaced 1.7 million people in 2018.

An average of 5,500 people fled their homes every day in the country this year, according to a report released by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

The UN has its largest and most expensive peacekeeping mission in the country with about 18,000 uniformed personnel.

The mission has been instrumental in the defeat of the M23 rebel group – one of the largest armed groups in DR Congo.

In the runup to the vote, ethnic violence increased significantly. CENI has postponed voting in Yumbi in the western Bandundu province until March next year following conflict that left more than 100 people dead.

Logistics

DR Congo is roughly the size of western Europe and that is proving a challenge when it comes to transporting voting materials to far-flung parts of the country.

The country doesn’t have a road network connecting its eastern to western part or southern to northern part.

The United Nations has offered logistics support to the electoral body but that has been turned down.

Voting machines

For the first time, DRC voters will use voting machines to cast their ballot.

Voters will elect the candidate of their choice using a tablet-like machine before their choice is printed out on a ballot paper.

The voter then submits their ballot paper, which is then counted after polls close.

CENI wants to deploy more than 100,000 of the South Korean-made voting machines across the country.

The electoral commission says the devices will cut costs and speed up the voting and counting process.

But the opposition, civil society groups and some observers fear the machines could be used to rig an election.

The machines have not been tested in the Democratic Republic of Congo before.

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Dhaka, Bangladesh – The opposition alliance in Bangladesh has accused the government of arresting its leaders and supporters ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary elections.

Jatiya Oikya Front (National Unity Front) has cast doubt on the impartiality of the elections, with its leader, Kamal Hossain, raising fingers at the chief election commissioner.

Nearly 2,000 candidates from the ruling Awami League and the opposition alliance led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) are competing for the 300 seats up for grabs.

Fifty seats are reserved for women in the 350-member parliament, called as Jatiya Sangshad.

Al Jazeera spoke to Hossain on issues facing the elections and his concerns regarding the conduct of the electoral process.

Al Jazeera: Why did you go against Awami League, a former ally?

Kamal Hossain: It’s because of people’s unanimous urge for change. People say they want change which means the United Front.

I also must reflect what everyone now says: time has come for a change.

I have been instrumental in Hasina government, and her return [from exile]. I was with her on the day her father was killed.

I am not someone who wants to bring her down, but I would say 10 years is enough, you have done five years with a proper election and five years without a proper election [the last election was boycotted by the opposition].

Al Jazeera: Do you faith in state institutions? You have raised fingers against the election commissioner.

Hossain: We have faith in institutions, but there are some individuals who are pulling down the institutions and doing the bidding for the government to get temporary gain.

Those who go to constitutional offices such as judges and election commissioners, they should be above personal temptation.

So we have asked them to bear in mind that they have a very important constitutional responsibility, which requires neutrality, impartially and fairness.

Al Jazeera: Is the police biased against the opposition?

Hossain: These are actions of a nervous regime, which feels that power is slipping from its hands. Now they are doing these extraordinary things of arresting people right, left and centre using police in a way that shames me because I have been part of the writing of the original constitution in 1972.

And every speech I have made said: Our police is not like the police we had before, this police fought for our liberation. Every time I meet them [police], I remind them of their glorious past.

But to see the police being misused for personal party gains is shameful. Police are a critical organisation in a multi-party democracy.

If police are not impartial, then that is the end of rule of law. I am not critical of the police but those who misuse the police.

Al Jazeera: Hasina says she has delivered development and people with vested interests are speaking out against her.

Hossain: We have lived longer than she has with the reality of Bangladesh. We remember, just before Bangladesh was born in 1971, Ayub Khan was the military ruler of Pakistan.

And we were sick and tired of hearing him: ‘these Bengalis talk about democracy but am I giving them development’.

Hasina may not remember that, she was too young then. What she is saying is not original. She has used exactly the same rhetoric used by Ayub Khan. Bangabandhu, our revered leader, used to tell him [Ayub Khan] this is not what people want when you take away their democratic rights.

Growth for whom, development for whom?

Al Jazeera: But the country has seen the high growth rate in the 10-year rule of Awami League government.

Hossain: It’s a very inequitable distribution of wealth. Farmers are not getting a just price for their produce. And the price they get in the market is very, very little. Middlemen are appropriating.

Why are salaries of garment workers, despite an increase in exports, stuck at 5,500? Now it’s gone up to 7000-8000 Taka. But we need a minimum of 12,000 for a living wage. Economic growth for whom?

If development does not include political and civil rights, democracy and fair elections, it does not mean much to people. People are being evicted from slums.They do not have a roof on their heads.

Government calls them miscreants. But the bulk of them is garment workers, most of them are women.

Promises have been made that slum dwellers will be rehabilitated but after 10 years, how many of them have been given alternative shelter?

There has to be a hard-hitting assessment as to why 47 years after independence, garment workers have to live in slums amid threats of eviction at short notice.

You can’t understand the reality of Bangladesh by only seeing the one percent at the top. Bulk of ‘basti’ [slum dwellers] people are garment workers, and the government has offered no programme for their housing.

The government claims that they have improved the power situation. But the cost at which electricity has been acquired, no one could buy it. Compare this with other South Asian neighbours such as India or Sri Lanka.

Al Jazeera: What’s your take on the Digital Security Law?

Hossain: After 47 years of independence, you do not expect to see a law like Digital Security Act (DSA).

When [Bangladesh was still part of Pakistan], you had a law, which allowed the government to lock up without giving any further ground. Your liberty was always in suspense. We fought against this.

We have this nasty experience of laws that allow this kind of power of detention.

Preventive detention is really an instrument of colonialism. That’s a legacy we want to relieve ourselves from.

DSA has similar provisions, which allows the government to detain someone indefinitely for expressing their opinion.

These kinds of laws have no room in Bangladesh where rule of law and democracy is one of the pillars of the constitution.

Al Jazeera: Do you think there will free and fair elections?

Hossain: If you support free and fair elections you do not go around right, left and centre throughout the country arresting people.

I have been in legal profession for 55 years, I have done many cases but never seen this kind of absolutely wanton arrests that are going on.

Moinul Haque Chaudhury, four times former member of parliament, has been arrested. No reasons were given. He could have been an effective leader during the election campaigning.