About 97.72 percent of voters in Sudan's Darfur referendum have chosen to keep the region's five-state status quo, an elections committee said on Saturday.

"As many as 3,081,976 people have voted in favor of the five-state option, while 71,920 voted for the one region option," Omer Ali Jamma, head of Sudan's National Commission for the Administrative Referendum in Darfur told a press conference in Khartoum Saturday.

He further noted that the total number of the voters who cast their ballots in the referendum reached 3,153,896.

The referendum on whether to keep the region's current administrative system of five states or unite them into one region was conducted during April 11-13.

It was conducted in accordance with the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD), signed between the Sudanese government and the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM) in 2011, provided that its result is to be included in the country's permanent constitution.

According to the agreement, if Darfur citizens vote for one state, then the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority (TDRA) will form a constitutional committee to determine the authority of Darfur's regional governments.

However, if Darfur citizens vote for the current five states, then, according to the agreement, the current status of the five states will remain as they are, and the TDRA will be dissolved.

Major rebel movements in Darfur refused to take part in the referendum, demanding that the central government fulfills their demands of reaching a political solution with the armed groups and financially compensating citizens affected by the conflict.

Source: XINHUA