The Referendum Commission and the Scenario of April’s Elections

By Dengdit Ayok, SUDAN

JULY 6/2010, SSN; The news had it that the long awaited formation of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission, which should have been formed two years ago according to the clauses of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), has been finally approved on Monday, June 28, 2010 by the National Legislature in Khartoum.

The Chairperson of the SPLM Parliamentary Caucus Hon. Thomas Wani, disclosed to the press on the same day that the National Legislature has approved the formation of the Commission and naming of Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim Khalil as the chairperson of the Commission, and Hon. Chan Reech Madut, the Deputy Chief Justice of Southern Sudan Judiciary (SSJ) as the Deputy Chairperson of the Commission and shall also be the chairperson of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission in Juba, Madam Suaad Ibrahim Issa, Professor Deng Awur Wany, Mr. Lual Chan Chol, Rt. Lt. Gen. Tariq Osman Al-Tahir, Mr. Philip Wanawill Unango, Mr. Sebit Alle Abbe, and Rt. Lt. Gen. Kamil Ali Mohammed as members of the Commission. The Commission is made up of five (5) Southerners and four (4) Northerners.

The existence of a Northerner on top of the Commission as its chairperson is completely unwelcome because the problem between the South and the North is a problem of lack of trust and confidence in the first place before it became a political problem or political crisis. Lack of trust and confidence between the two sides is the real problem that had sown the seeds of animosity in the hearts of the Northerners and Southerners and made them fight each other vigorously over the last fifty years.

Honorable Abel Alier, though a Southerner, did not worked for the welfare of South Sudanese when he was the President of Southern Sudan after the signing of Addis Ababa Peace Agreement (AAPA) and when he was recently appointed Chairman of the National Elections Commission (NEC). He took part in the process of cheating that took place during polling last April and enthroned Omer Al-Bashir as the President of Sudan. 

Now that the National Legislature has approved the formation of the Referendum Commission and naming of Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim Khalil as its chairperson, what is the guarantee that Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim Khalil shall work honestly as the head of the Referendum Commission and allow the people of Southern Sudan to determine their future status through the upcoming Referendum?

Since all the Northerners are against the secession of Southern Sudan, is this not another clear political scenario and act of cheating by the Northerners to abort the success of the upcoming Referendum for Southerners on self-determination?

What is the guarantee that the funds which the International Community shall provide for conducting the Referendum in 2011 that shall fall into the hands of Northerners shall be sent to the South early and used for the functions of the Commission there? What is the guarantee that there shall be no delay in this process? Will there be honesty, transparency and neutrality?  

Again, the existence of a Northerner on top of the Referendum Commission is unwelcome because his existence on top of this Commission is a great threat to the future status of the people of Southern Sudan which they shall soon determined in January 2011.

Southern Sudanese are going to vote for an independent, viable and sovereign state in the geographical location that constitutes the present Southern Sudan. We don’t want a Northerner on top of this Commission. We don’t want him because he, as a Northern, will not accept the secession to take place. We don’t want him because their position on the secession of the Southern Sudan is very clear and frank, they said the following recently:

“We have inherited the Sudan from our ancestors as a unified country and we cannot and will not accept or allow an inch of it to breakaway”.

This is what Sheikh Mohammed Osman Al-Mirghani, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and other leaders of Northern political forces have said recently. 

Some of those Northern leaders have even blamed the NCP and they are still blaming it for accepting the provision of self-determination to be included and stipulated in Machakos Protocol during the peace talks at Naivasha and enshrined later on in the articles of the National Interim Constitution (NIC) of the Republic of the Sudan. They have so far held the NCP responsible for the secession of Southern Sudan and the later disintegration of the Sudan after the secession of the South.

Have you seen how clever they are? They have held the NCP responsible for the secession of the South despite the fact that they (all the Northern political parties) are collectively the cause of disunity, hatred, bitterness, animosity and the upcoming inevitable secession of the Southern Sudan when they had politically, economically, socially and culturally marginalized the people of Southern Sudan and treated them as second class citizens in their own country after the independence.

The experience of elections last April and the scenario of fraud and rigging which was and still part of the National Congress Party’s nature are likely to happen again during the Referendum. Hon. Thomas Wani has expressed his worries on the upcoming Referendum expecting the April’s elections scenario to repeat itself again. Let me quote his words. He said:

“Based on the elections experience in Northern Sudan, I expect the Referendum Commission to be the worse, because the Northerners are beating the drum of unity now and they will have the following: ones; they have already began to make rigging, we have reliable sources telling us that Southerners living in Gazira State are already being registered for the Referendum in Rufaa town and Wad Medani in central Sudan and they are going ahead in other towns in Northern Sudan.”

This is a clear indication that Northerners are going to repeat the elections scenario of fraud and rigging which they did last April in the upcoming Referendum on self-determination for the people of Southern Sudan. I was surprised when I read the above words of the SPLM Caucus Chairperson Hon. Thomas Wani.

He and all the members of his SPLM Caucus are also members of the National Legislature. They were part of the Assembly session that has approved the formation the Referendum Commission. If they were early aware of the early rigging of the Referendum as he said in the above quotation, then why did they approved, endorsed and blessed the formation of the Commission in the National Legislature?

A patriotic, honest and loyal Southerner to the cause of the people of Southern Sudan should be appointed as the head of the Referendum Commission to serve his people in this critical period in the history Sudan, or else fraud and cheating are going to be practiced as they were practiced before, during and after the elections last April.

The Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM) as the advocate of the rights of the people of Southern Sudan should reject and insist on the appointment of a patriotic, honest and loyal Southerner to the cause of the people of Southern Sudan to serve his people in this critical period in the history of Sudan, so that they decide their destiny by voting for an independent, viable, and sovereign state in the Southern Sudan. That person should be an SPLM-oriented member.

Important quote:

“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal state to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of the Independence of the United States of America.

The author of this article, Dengdit Ayok Deng Agor, is a concerned South Sudanese residing in Khartoum. He can be reached at dengdit_a@yahoo.com.