SPLM official position on the electoral system
By Atem Mabior
January 26, 2008 — Sudanese political parties are currently discussing among themselves with the view of agreeing on a suitable electoral system that will be applied in the country in 2009 elections.
Generally speaking, the choice of an electoral system should be influenced many principles among them the following:
– Legitimacy: the chosen electoral system should be agreed upon by all Sudanese political forces. It should have their confidence and reflect their values.
– Fairness of representation: the number of seats allocated to each constituency should reflect the demographic distribution and density of the population.
– Voter choice: the electoral system should promote voter choice in terms of providing options to voters.
– Stable and effective government: the electoral system should contribute to the stability and continuity of government and the government should be able to develop and implement their agendas and programs.
– Effective parliament: the legislative assembly should include a government and an effective opposition and should be able to perform its parliamentary functions successfully.
– Stronger voter participation: the chosen electoral system should promote voter participation as well as engage them in the broader democratic process.
– Accountability: The chosen electoral system should be able to produce a government and other decision makers and hold them accountable.
– Simplicity and practicality: our electoral system should be understandable to voters and should be user-friendly. This will enable voters to use it with minimum assistance from electoral officials and thereby avoid corruption and waste of ballot cards. This point is particularly important in Sudan where a majority of voters do not write or read.
We are informed that in August 2007 the SPLM Interim National Council (INC) debated extensively the issue of electoral system. At the end of its meeting the INC came up with a resolution supporting a Direct Majoritarian electoral system after a vote and instructed SPLM delegates in the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC) to communicate this decision to the Commission as the official position of the SPLM. The INC also resolved that 25% of the seats be allocated for women. A proposal for a system of proportional representation based on party list was defeated and dropped. It is sad to learn that the INC decision was overturned in Khartoum. We do not know who made this decision. We are also informed that the SPLM members in the NCRC are now collaborating with other Northern political parties to push for an electoral system in which 50% is direct Majoritarian and 50% proportional representation. The SPLM delegates to the NCRC are reported to be particularly in love with “the party list” version of the proportional representation. We condemn this fraudulent attitude by the SPLM delegates to the NCRC and state that his is a clear violation of the INC resolution and disrespect for party basic rules and principles. We are aware that this fraudulent act on the part of some SPLM leaders is intended to smuggle in their unpopular supporters to the legislative assemblies through the back doors.
Proportional Representation (PR) is a system which is very complex and which very few Sudanese will understand. Similarly, the PR system particularly the party list version does not give voters the freedom to express their preferences and choose their own representatives and this is a very importance shortcoming or weakness. Another weakness of the PR system is that it induces the formation of narrow ethnic parties that appeal to ethnic cleavages in order to maximise support. We in Diaspora stand for Direct Majoritarian electoral system. We have two basic reasons for advocating this type of system. First, the Direct Majoritarian principle is at the very heart of democracy. In a direct democracy the majority wins and decisions are made through majority vote. It would thus seem natural to apply the same logic to the election of legislators. Secondly, the Direct Majoritarian offers a reasonable degree of both responsiveness and accountability. It allows for the competition of many parties and often leads to the formation of coalition governments.
The official position of the SPLM regarding the most suitable electoral system should remain the Direct Majoritarian as resolved by the INC. Any other system that the SPLM members in the NCRC are advocating is illegal and should not be accepted by the NCRC. Mr. Samuel Mogga, the SPLM member in the NCRC in an interview claimed that the direct Majoritarian system is not suitable because it will only benefit the NCP as it was in power for over 20 years and has consolidated its power base. The question is what should be done? Should the elections be postponed until the SPLM and its allies consolidate their power bases and for how long should the elections be postponed? We think this is ridiculous and time wasting. The SPLM can not brag about democratic transformation and at the same time fear direct elections. Democracy itself is about free and fair elections and it is about giving people choices and preferences. Democracy can not be exercise through appointments and selections of people’s representatives. They must be elected by the people. It is regrettable that the SPLM members in the NCRC should behave dishonestly as they did. We appeal to the SPLM leadership to discipline these dishonest crooks. Dishonesty and fraud are two crimes are punishable according to SPLM basic rules. But we doubt whether the leadership is ready to do anything about these crimes as other serious crimes than this have been glossed over. SPLM leadership may be conniving with these dishonest SPLM members in the NCRC. As Mr. John Mayen Jurkuc suggested in his article “Rigging the SPLM Convention: Salva Kiir Mayardit has gone too far”, this fraudulent behaviour on the part of the SPLM members in NCRC might have been blessed by Kiir in yet another desperate attempt to rig elections in 2009.
The author is the head of SPLM Veterans for Truth in Diaspora, London UK. He can be reached at
[email protected]
martin simon wani
SPLM official position on the electoral system
The SPLM should also add counting of the balot papers in the polling stations and introduction of verification forms to be signed by the agents of the political parties involved in the election to minimize possiblities of election rigging.
Gatwech
SPLM official position on the electoral system
The issue of ethnicity should be taken seriously to prove that Sudan is an African country, not an Arab country as claimed by the few in the North.
Also in the South, we would know the population of each tribe.
hitler69
Tribal violence spirals in Kenya,”
Lets think about what the write wants to tell us here….I think its worth reading and applying it to southern sudan. Maybe we ca avoid some few things if the government by that time if careful.
Here we go!
Kenya stokes tribalism debate
By Mark Doyle
BBC world affairs correspondent
World headlines on Kenya appear to say it all.
“Tribal violence spirals in Kenya,” screams the front page banner in the International Herald Tribune. “Kenya plunges into interethnic violence,” says Le Monde.
But headlines can be misleading.
It is certainly true that the post-electoral violence in Kenya has taken on a tribal character.
Members of the incumbent (and controversially re-installed) President Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe have been pitted against other smaller tribes.
But that is only part of the story.
A more complete headline might be: “Tribal differences in Kenya, normally accepted peacefully, are exploited by politicians hungry for power who can manipulate poverty-stricken population.”
But headlines are not really headlines when they are written like that – and few would criticise the international newspapers for their pithy style.
The ethnic and political violence in Kenya has renewed debate about whether multi-party democracy can be successful in an African context where ethnic loyalties are strong.
If you ask almost any African this question the answer will be qualified: “Yes, democracy can work… if only our leaders allowed it.”
It would be naive in the extreme to discount ethnicity in any African election.
The reality of life on the world’s poorest continent is that most people live a marginal economic existence and rely enormously, for survival, on those nearest to them.
Rural villagers rely on each other, for example, to bring in the crop, or to share food in difficult times.
Urban dwellers often organise themselves to provide common services like schools because their governments are either too poor or too incompetent to deliver.
In these circumstances the people nearest to you – whom you can trust – are first, family, and second, tribe.
African politicians know this formula very well and many of them exploit it ruthlessly.
“Vote for me,” they say, “because I’m from your tribe and you can trust me.”
Unemployed young men
The most dramatic recent illustration of this kind of manipulation was the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
Hutus were persuaded by an extremist Hutu power bloc that all Tutsis were their enemies.
There are many other less catastrophic examples.
Politics in Nigeria, for example, is a complex chessboard of ethnicity and religion.
The presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006 divided the country along ethnic and linguistic lines.
And even in a peaceful, democratic country like Ghana, it is clear that ethnic Ashantis, for example, tend to vote one way while ethnic Ewes tend to vote another.
But at the same time there is usually a further explanation – beyond ethnic group – for the way people vote or the way they react to situations like the current crisis in Kenya.
That explanation is almost always rooted in money – or a lack of it – and the cynical search for power by politicians.
It is no coincidence that the people who usually perpetrate “tribal violence” are unemployed young men.
In Ivory Coast in the late 1990s, for example, the campaign against northerners that was orchestrated by southern politicians – and which eventually led to a full-scale civil war – was spearheaded by youths in the main city, Abidjan, who were paid a daily rate for the job.
‘Land grabs’
Equally, in the Kenyan case, it is no coincidence that some of the worst violence has been in the Rift Valley area.
The region has a history of land disputes.
Some of those disputes were originally caused by what was coyly called European “settlement” – which created refugees hungry for land.
More recently, Kenyan politicians have practised more honestly named “land grabs” in parts of the country.
African intellectuals who concede there is a problem of tribalism on the continent – or, rather, a problem of the deliberate manipulation of tribal sentiment by selfish politicians – stress that there is also a rational solution.
Part of the solution, they say, is economic development. If there is growth in the economy there will be more education and less ignorance about fellow citizens of other tribes – and, of course, fewer unemployed thugs for politicians to “buy” for a few cents a day.
Another part of the solution, they say, is genuine democracy with genuinely independent law courts.
People would have no need to rely on their tribe – apart from culturally, should they so wish – if they could rely on all their ballot papers being counted, and could expect honest judgements from courts.
Here, Africa can point to progress in recent decades.
Fifty years ago, almost the entire continent was ruled by foreign colonial powers.
Even just 20 years ago, most African countries were run by dictators or military juntas.
Now, thanks to pro-democracy activists, most African nations have an elected government.
Good start
Many of those governments are far from perfect.
But the advent of at least some democracy – assisted by relatively cheap technology such as FM radio stations and mobile phones which can spread information easily – has encouraged what seems to be an irreversible cultural sea-change in African attitudes to those in power.
Put bluntly, that change means that people can no longer be comprehensively fooled or dictated to.
It is still possible for politicians to cheat at elections – for example through the vehicle of ethnicity.
But the new freedoms, coupled with the new technology, make it almost impossible for politicians to do this without people knowing what is going on.
That is a good start, African intellectuals say, and it may one day mean the end of negative tribalism.
Meanwhile, of course, those headlines will remain at least half true.
KENYA’S ETHNIC GROUPS
Population 34.5m, comprising more than 40 ethnic groups
Kikuyu are the largest tribe, mostly concentrated around Nairobi
Most of Eastern/ North-eastern regions sparsely populated with ethnic Somalis
Main ethnic groups are:
Kikuyu: 22%
Luhya: 14%
Luo: 13%
Kalenjin: 12%
Kamba: 11%
Kisii: 6%
Meru: 6%
Other African: 15%
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7168551.stm
Published: 2008/01/04 09:47:16 GMT
© BBC MMVIII