South Sudan referendum commission prepares for Monday’s final result
By Ngor Arol Garang
February 6, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The leadership of the referendum commission for the south’s self determination referendum is to announce the final results on Monday after no appeals were recieved.
Justice Chan Reec Madut, deputy chairperson of the referendum on Sunday told Sudan Tribune in an interview that final results of the recently concluded referendum on self determination for the people of south Sudan will be announced on Monday.
“The results are going to be announced tomorrow on Monday at 11 o’clock at the Friendship Hall in Khartoum”, Madut told Sudan Tribune. “This is in line with referendum timetable that says results can be announced on 7th February 2011, if there are no appeals and 14 February 2011 if there are appeals. So far, there are no appeals to delay the announcement by a week”, explained Madut.
The second top official in the organizational structure of the commission said final results will officially be announced by chairman of the commission, Mohamed Khalil Ibrahim in presence of the nine members of the commission and other invited guests and dignitaries.
Madut said that Monday’s announcement would confirm preliminary results released on January 30, 2011.
“There will be no changes to initial results. This is just [to] confirm the results released on 30th January which showed almost 99 percent of south Sudanese who voted at the referendum chose to secede from the north”.
The January vote which on January 15 concluded peacefully without incident, notwithstanding the logistical challenges faced by the organizers and fears that the Khartoum based government would sabotage the conduct of the plebiscite
But Sudanese president Omer Hassan Ahmed Al Bashir has said he would recognize the choice of the people from the oil-producing south. His vice president Ali Osman Mohammed Taha has already on Monday last week, a day after the preliminary results confirmed the ruling party’s acceptance of the result.
The vote, whose conduct drew laudable comments from international observers, was the centerpiece of a 2005 peace deal that ended a devastating 22-year conflict between the largely Islamic north and the south, where most people are followers of Christianity and traditional beliefs.
While the separation of Sudan could provide a settlement to the long outstanding differences between the regions, the parties representing the citizens the two sides have not yet reached consensus on numerous outstanding issues, including border demarcation, the status of the disputed oil-producing of Abyei and oil-revenue sharing, currency and sovereign debt, as well as citizenship, that have to be resolved before the south declares independence on July 9.
(ST)