KHARTOUM: Voter registration for Sudan's first presidential and legislative elections in nearly a quarter of a century, due to be held in April, kicked off on Sunday.

"Voter registration has started across Sudan," the head of the elections commission, Al-Hadi Mohammed Ahmed, told AFP.

An AFP correspondent said a trickle of would-be voters were seen registering in the capital Khartoum on Sunday morning.

Sudan, Africa's largest nation, is due to hold its first general elections in 24 years in April 2010.

Some 19 to 20 million eligible voters will be able to cast their ballots for a new president, for parliament as well as for local officials across the nation, the authorities said.

The general elections will be the first in Sudan -- home to 39 million inhabitants -- since 1986, three years before President Omar al-Beshir toppled a democratically elected government in a bloodless military coup.

Beshir has since March faced an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in the war-torn western Darfur region.

Sudanese voters have a month to register for the polls and in order to reach all potential voters, the authorities have set up both fixed and mobile registration centres across Africa's largest country.

"I am Sudanese and I want to exercise my right to vote," said Mushaid Yussef, a young mother, who went to register with a baby in her arms in one of Khartoum's working-class districts.

Ali Abdel Galil Omar said he was given a "plastic, numbered voter registration card" which he was told to submit in April when he casts his ballot.

"It is different from previous elections," the old man said about the registration procedure.