Voting booths across Sudan will be quiet today. Members of all opposition parties are refusing to participate in the vote, and activists are calling for a mass boycott of a "charade" election.
President Omar al-Bashir, who has ruled for 26 years, is expected to win another landslide.
Bashir is wanted on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide over his military campaign in Darfur. Elsewhere, he is fighting insurgencies in the southern regions of the Blue Nile and South Kordofan, where fighting erupted in 2011 when South Sudan seceded to form an independent state.
As a result, it was announced last week that elections will not take place in one district of Darfur, and seven in South Kordofan, with officials citing security reasons.
The rebel insurgencies Bashir faces in Darfur, South Kordofan and the Blue Nile see predominantly African groups fighting against the government's armies and militia, who are mostly of Arab ethnicity.
Ethnic identity has frequently been twisted to the needs of ruling and opposition parties, as well as rebel forces. Local leaders in marginalised areas of Sudan accuse ruling, Arab elites – who are the majority in the capital, Khartoum – of consistently failing to deliver on promises of shared wealth and development.
Rebel leaders have called the election "propaganda", and say that lack of representation in central government is the motivation for them to keep fighting.
In the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan more than 3,500 bombs have fallen on civilian targets, leaving the population homeless, facing a food crisis and forced to live in caves , hiding from a war that has raged for nearly two decades.
#Sudan the youngest voter we met us 40 and oldest +70 where are the youth ???
Voter turnout in the 3 polling stations I visited since the morning is extremely low, showcasing popular apathy about elections in #Sudan.
For Yasser, a journalist in Khartoum, the vote is meaningless. "I will not vote in the elections because I know the result in advance," he says.
The UN estimates that Sudan's population is near 37 million, with nearly 600 ethnic groups speaking more than 400 languages and dialects.
Koko calls for "elections that are democratic and inclusive for all people," adding that it isn't fair that some regions are at war while others are peaceful enough to vote.
In an apparent attempt to gain favour, the government released two prominent political prisoners last week. They were criticised by rights group Freedom House of attempting to "legitimise a tainted electoral process".
Fadlalla Burma Nassir of the opposition Umma Party, welcomed the release of the two men but warned: "It does not change the environment, where the government is cracking down on the opposition, on civil society, and on the media," he said.