Debates resume within SPLM over who should contest against Bashir
By Ngor Arol Garang
September 10, 2009 (KHARTOUM) – Just months before Sudanese get into elections that are being described as a test for democracy, southern elites are sharply debating about who from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) should contest against current Sudanese President Bashir of the ruling National Congress Party.
SPLM is one of the main national political parties expected to provide a candidate for the position of President of the Republic, but the party has yet to make a nomination.
The question seems to many ordinary citizens – including some members of the SPLM – to have been repetitive for the last two years. But the topic of SPLM’s presidential candidate still generated interest in informal surveying.
Opinion surveys conducted in the three Khartoum campuses for southern Sudanese – the Universities of Juba, Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile – have found that there is intensifying discussion among SPLM supporters over Governor Malik Agar, indicating a great desire that he be nominated if SPLM Chairman Salva Kiir declines.
Individuals from the following areas were questioned in July 2009: the rural town of Malaualkon in Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Mundri in Western Equatoria, Akobo in Jonglei, Kapeota in Eastern Equatoria, Biemnhom in Unity and Wurok in Warrap State. Ordinary citizens who shared their views on the issue differed very sharply.
Some ague that President Salva Kiir as party chairman is the real presidential candidate for the SPLM party; others say he should not be forced to stand against his will suggesting that he remain president of the Government of Southern Sudan and allow his Vice President Riek Machar to go and contest against Bashir.
Within the SPLM leadership, Mr. Kiir reportedly refused to accept the nomination, and Dr. Machar said that he would only accept if given the chairmanship of the party, which was refused to him. These developments took place in May 2009 at an SPLM Political Bureau meeting, where discussions of the matter were suspended until a later session.
Others suggests that if the Mr. Kiir is not contesting for the presidency and Dr. Machar continues to demand a transfer of all powers to himself, why not nominate Pagan Amum as a second alternative to Malik Agar?
Speaking at Juba University Campus in Kodoro, east of Khartoum, Sabina Betrous, a management science student from Kauda in Nuba Mountains, said that freedom, equality and all other dreams provided in the SPLM manifesto need to be implemented through these upcoming national elections.
SPLM must nominate a candidate to contest against President Bashir adding that this candidate should be a committed member of the movement since its inception, one who would not betray the interest of the marginalized Sudanese people if elected, she commented.
Similarly, Deng Chol, a law student, added that SPLM need not dishonor its commitments of bringing changes to the war-affected Sudanese people by declining to nominate a strong and shining candidate to once and for all remove the remains of successive Khartoum regime elites in NCP.
“I strongly feel that we should give his Excellency Malik Agar the Governor of Blue Nile State our votes as students for candidacy on SPLM,” recommended Simon Yak, another student studying medicine in Upper Nile University.
“Between Malik Agar, Pagan Amum and James Wani Igga, I support their nomination for national candidate, because these comrades have never swayed against southern interest,” he added.
(ST)