Sudan’s SPLM boycotts key elections meeting

August 5, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) boycotted a meeting to formally receive the electoral commission’s final formation of the geographical constituencies.

The constituencies were based on the census results conducted over a year ago but that the ex-Southern rebel group refuses to recognize.

The SPLM spokesperson Yen Mathew said that the movement “does not want to be part of an institutionalized forgery program.”

“The elections commission relied in creating the geographical constituencies on the rigged census results…we do not want to subscribe to the grand deceit to our people hoping for democratic transformation,” Mathew said.

The SPLM wants the geographical constituencies to be based on the 1956 census percentages but the dominant ruling National Congress Party (NCP) rejects the demand.

Mathew criticized the electoral board saying it ignored their observations. The commission said any objections are to be submitted within a month after which the constituencies will be finalized.

Any party may still challenge the formation before the courts afterwards, he added.

The United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) Chief Electoral Affairs Officer Ray Kennedy on Wednesday suggested that the SPLM position would delay elections.

“What I would say is that we do face a very tight timeframe. Anything that potentially delays any part of that timeframe could have an impact on when the elections are held,” Kennedy said.

The elections in Sudan will be the first in more than 20 years under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended over two decades of civil war between north and south Sudan.

(ST)