Referendum commission leaves appointment of Secretary General to Presidency

By Ngor Arol Garang

August 19, 2010 (RENK) — The leadership of Southern Sudan Referendum Commission on Thursday said it decided to leave decision to appoint Secretary General to the Presidency.

This came following internal upheavals over who should be appointed as Secretary General to run administrative affairs of the commission. Chan Reec Madut, Deputy Chairperson of the commission told Sudan Tribune from Juba that internal discussions to appointment secretary general have failed to reach any consensus.

Though the SPLM Politburo has agreed this week that NCP will nominate a person to fill the post, the right person from the NCP candidates is yet to be agreed and appointed.

While internal attempts to appoint Secretary General for the Commission have met resisting voices by commission’s members from the south, two candidates from the north were proposed for the post and no candidate from south was officially proposed.

“Internal attempts in the commission to appoint Secretary General have failed, so it is left to the Presidency to decide,” said Madut who is also the head of the Juba based Southern Sudan Referendum Bureau.

He however added that other activities, which he mentioned as coordination between Juba and Khartoum as well as with southern states continues to be carried out despite the disagreement.

“Routine activities are progressing well. We are in daily contacts and communicating with state high committees,” he said.

Last week, Professor Mohammed Ibrahim Khalil, chairman of the referendum commission with his deputy, Justice Chan Reec, appointed high executive committees in the states and sworn in members of the referendum bureau in Juba.

“We have appointed high executive committees in all the ten states of Southern Sudan last week. They are in processes of setting office in the states to select and form sub-committees in the counties,” he said.

A nine member commission representing the two peace partners of 2005 agreement was formed in June following initial deadlocks to reach consensus over membership composition. Its membership includes five representatives from the south and four from the north.

“So far we have 63 positions filed, including the commission itself. In these 63, four are northerners and 59 are southerners,” said Khalil.

“So what is all this fight about nominating a person who happens to be a northerner to be Secretary General? That would make five northerners to 59 southerners. What is all this farce about?” he asked in an interview with Reuters last week commenting on the opposition of southern members to appoint a northerner as secretary general of the commission.

Referendum, one of the key provisions of the 2005 peace accord that ended the more than two decades long civil war between north and south Sudan, allows southern Sudanese to vote at the end of six years of interim period to decide whether to remain part of united Sudan or choose to be separate from the rest of the country.

The National Assembly in Khartoum passed a referendum act in December 2009 allowing formation of a commission responsible for organizing demonstrations demanding passage of the act.

“The main obstacle is time,” said Khalil. With the commission formed three years behind schedule; a task which in the view of interim constitution should take nearly 42 months is now required to be done in six months.”

Despite the delay and concentrated timeframe, the commission said it is determined to conduct the exercise and denied reports in the media and from politicians that it had requested a postponement of the referendum.

“Newspapers and sometimes politicians, for reasons of their own, make me say what I have not said. The memorandum is not requiring a delay,” said Khalil, referring to a letter he sent to President Bashir.

Emphasizing on the need to appoint to a Secretary General to follow what he termed as complex and politically sensitive task of voter registration, constitution requires that final list be published three months before reaching actual proposed date for referendum and after completion of appeal process.

“Work is being done but of course there is a limit to what you can do things before the nomination of the secretary general,” he said.

Despite difficulties between the two peace partners, President Bashir has never missed assuring Southern Sudanese populace of the commitment his government to conduct referendum as proposed.

(ST)