NCP – SPLM friendship is a political one

By Zechariah Manyok Biar

October 4, 2009 — The just ended conference between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and Northern opposition parties has caused concerns in both Northerners and Southerners. The National Congress Party (NCP) officials are nervous about the conference because the alliance that SPLM is building with the parties of popular Northern politicians like the former Prime Minister of Sudan Sadiq Al- Mahdi and the former Speaker of Sudan Dr. Hassan Al-Turabi is a potential political threat to NCP. The NCP’s fear is that many people in the North who respect Al-Mahdi and Al-Turabi may rise against President Al-Bashir if they know that a strong party like SPLM will stand behind Sadiq Al-Mahdi if nominated against President Al-Bashir. NCP officials are also nervous because Juba conference can give Northerners a feeling that things might be different if NCP is no longer powerful. The threat for SPLM and its allies to boycott the upcoming elections is also sending fear to NCP which is seeking new legitimacy for the maintaining of power in the next five years.

Southern Sudanese are not free from fear also. Some Southerners think that the friendship between NCP and SPLM is the only thing that will keep the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) alive. They think that any new political alliance would amount to renegotiations of CPA. These Southerners think that NCP and SPLM are not supposed to abandon each other at this time.

These are genuine concerns. But the reality is that the friendship between NCP and SPLM is nothing more than a political friendship. CPA is a political document that can only be guaranteed by how much power each side has between NCP and SPLM. Remember that CPA came into being as an agreement between the warring parties. What stopped, then, was the firing of gun at each other between NCP and SPLM. Political maneuvering has not ended, and that is the dangerous war. If any side between NCP and SPLM thinks that it would play friendship game just to please the other, then it can become a victim of political interest.

What matters now is that each part between NCP and SPLM fears the other. That is the only way that CPA can be implemented. In political frame everywhere in the world, negotiations are based on three things: interests, power, and conflict. Let us examine these frames in comparison to our political situation.

Interest is the real base of political friendship. This friendship is what Aristotle calls “utility friendship.” According to Aristotle, “those who love each other for their utility do not love each other for themselves but in virtue of some good which they get from each other.” He goes ahead to say that utility “friendships, then, are easily dissolved, if the parties do not remain like themselves; for if the one party is no longer pleasant or useful the other ceases to love him.”

Getting and using power is the other thing that governs political friendship. In this situation, any dominant party can use its power to advance its interest. There is no sympathy in politics, unless the opposing parties are equally powerful. This is the stage that NCP and SPLM are now in. Each side is doing everything it can to outsmart the other. The overcoming of any side here is a catastrophic, especially for SPLM and referendum.

So SPLM can only force NCP into fairness if SPLM gets more power from other political parties. Only people who are not aware of this stage are the ones who condemn SPLM for associating itself with other parties and not remaining as non-provocative friend of NCP.

Election-boycott threat that SPLM and its new friends have communicated to NCP makes sense under the power-based political negotiations. NCP cannot ignore SPLM and go ahead with elections because such elections will not be recognized by the international community. So what NCP can do is to listen to what SPLM and its new friends are demanding. This is the only way NCP can transform the system to give way to fair elections. It is also this threat that can force NCP to be fair-minded in the ongoing referendum bill debate. The same threat can bring peace to Darfur.

But this threat cannot make sense if SPLM is very weak. Being CPA allies with NCP does not guarantee SPLM’s success at all if NCP is sure that it has the unchallenged powers that it can use to manipulate the SPLM. That is the reason why SPLM is now consolidating its powers through new friendship.

The last stage is managing conflict to get things done. This stage can only work if at least two parties in a nation are equally powerful. Each side would listen to the other because no law would be passed or implemented if any side ignores the other. The interest of each side becomes important in this stage and win-win solution becomes the only rule of the game.

Let us be realistic and say that a weaker SPLM will not impress the stronger NCP through mere friendship. SPLM is not begging for the implementation of CPA from NCP. The relationship between NCP and SPLM is not father-to-child relationship in which NCP can say something without being challenged. The relationship between NCP and SPLM is a political one which is not free from the universal political frames that I have mentioned above. If we condemn SPLM for making political alliance with Northern oppositions, then we must be clear about the political philosophy we are using and how effective such a philosophy is.

The most important thing in the coming two years of CPA is for Southern political parties to work together when it comes to CPA’s implementation in order to have a strong political voice that will give power to the people. The unchallenged power of NCP can pass laws that will direct people to what NCP officials want and not what people want. SPLM can also stay on track if the messages of political parties in the South always aim at how the voice of Southerners must be heard. Friendship with parties in the North should be clear: No renegotiation of CPA, but the South is opened to any future good neighborhood between the North and the South if Southerners choose to go in 2011.

Zechariah Manyok Biar is a graduate student at Abilene Christian University, Texas, USA. He is pursuing a Master of Arts in Christian Ministry and a Master of Science in Social Work, specializing in Administration and Planning. For comments, contact him at email: [email protected]