Sudan’s peace partners considering solutions to census issue – Machar
By James Gatdet Dak
October 4, 2009 (JUBA) – Sudan Peace partners are studying ways to reach a compromise on the disputed 2008 census results and the referendum law, said Southern Sudan Vice President.
Dr. Marchar told the cabinet that the two partners to the 2005’s peace deal, the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) have been working to reach a compromise that would overcome the dispute over the census results.
SPLM rejected the results of the census which put Southern Sudan population at 8.2 million people, saying it did not reflect the true figure of the population.
The SPLM said the population of Southern Sudanese residing in the North was undercounted at 500,000 while the population of Darfur was increased by 100%.
Southern Sudan expected its population in the North to be between 2 to 3 million people.
The results of the fifth census put the number of Southern Sudanese at 8.2 million which represents 20% of the whole Sudan’s population. This figure would affect its power and wealth sharing allocations.
SPLM officials said the Southern Sudan census commission also made a mistake by giving its raw data to the Khartoum Census Bureau which did not reciprocate, leading to manipulation of the census results.
Other factors are also blamed for the failure of the census in Southern Sudan.
Unity state and Northern Bahr el Ghazal were among the Southern Sudan states that rejected the results of the census.
Unity state, for instance, argued that over 580,000 of its registered citizens still reside in the North while others were not properly counted at home.
Machar said the two parties have been discussing the possibility of amending the Interim National Constitution in order to provide for certain provisions that would address the concern of the South.
The national parliament may raise the passing vote to 81% during the interim period so that no body could introduce a bill and easily pass it against the concerns of the 20% Southern Sudan representation.
Another option under discussion, Machar added, is to raise the Southern Sudan power sharing representation to 30% instead of 20% during the interim period.
On the referendum law he said the NCP still insists that the quorum of turnout registered eligible voters should be 90% if it were to accept the SPLM proposal of the simple majority vote of 51% required to declare the South independent.
Machar, who chairs the SPLM Executive Political Committee that negotiates the CPA implementation with the NCP, also said his team prefers a one ballot box system and ballot cards bearing different symbols, adding that a two-ballot box system is susceptible to fraud.
There are several other contentious issues including the mechanisms to be used for identifying who is a Southerner in the North that should be allowed to vote in the referendum.
The two parties’ meeting to be co-chaired by the Vice President of Sudan, Ali Osman Taha and Southern Sudan’s Vice President, Dr. Riek Machar, is expected to resume in Khartoum within the next two days to try to thrush out the other remaining outstanding issues.
(ST)