KHARTOUM, August 3, 2008 (AFP) - Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir pledged on Sunday that landmark national elections, scheduled next year in a planned move towards democratic transformation, will be held on time.

He was addressing African and Arab trade unionists who had gathered to express their support and to denounce a request from the prosecutor of the world court for his arrest on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Many analysts have argued that any arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) could jeopardise a 2005 peace agreement between north and south Sudan calling for elections no later than 2009.

'We shall also go on with the democratic process and start the elections on its date,' said the official English translation of Beshir's speech.

Sudan's new electoral law for the first time grants women 25 percent of seats in the national assembly and introduces proportional representation into Africa's largest country by setting quotas for political parties.

But massive delays have so far hindered preparations for the elections. The new electoral law was passed last month -- two and a half years late -- and an independent electoral commission has yet to be appointed.

Beshir pledged again to strive for a political solution to the five-year conflict in Dafur, over which the ICC prosecutor is seeking his arrest on 10 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

He expressed confidence in Sudanese justice.

His regime is locked in efforts to persuade the UN Security Council to freeze possible legal proceedings should ICC judges issue an arrest warrant, charging that it could jeopardise peace prospects.

Beshir seized power in a 1989 Islamist-backed coup that overthrew the democratically elected government.

He was first declared elected president in a 1996 poll widely denounced as fraudulent. He won a new five-year term during Sudan's last national election in December 2000. Those elections were boycotted by the opposition.