Southern Sudanese in Uganda vote for secession
By Muhammad Osman
January 19, 2011 (NAIROBI) – The great majority of southerners living in Uganda has voted for secession in south Sudan referendum on independence as shown in preliminary results announced by the commission organizing the plebiscite.
SSRC representative in Uganda, Rev Michael Saki, told a press conference at the offices of the International Organization for Migration in the capital Kampala on Wednesday that the large turnout had exceeded their expectations.
According to Michael Saki, “11,767 voted for secession, 478 for unity, 31 had invalid balance and 54 people left their ballot papers unmarked.”
The figures show that only 961 registrants failed to vote.
South Sudan referendum, the centerpiece of a 2005’s peace deal that ended decades of civil war between the north and the south in Sudan, kicked off as originally planned on 9 January and ended one week later on 15 January.
The voting took place at 3000 polling stations domestically and in eight Out-of-Country Voting locations, including Uganda, Kenya, Australia, Canada, Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, the UK and the US.
The SSRC’s media secretary Gorge Makuer announced on Tuesday that the turnout in the Diaspora had risen to 96%.
The plebiscite requires 60% turnout of registered voters to render its results valid, a threshold already reached according to SSRC and foreign observers. A simple majority of 50% plus one will determine the outcome.
Saki noted that the vote in Uganda was free and fair right, which chimes with the findings of foreign observation missions who on Monday gave the exercise the seal of approval as “fair and credible.”
Vote-counting results trickling from in-country and out-of-country polling locations have strengthened the already foregone conclusion that the semi-autonomous region is on its way to becoming an independent state.
(ST)