Watch out for swindles in the referendum agreement

By Abraham Awolich

October 19, 2009 — Yesterday, many Sudanese across the globe were taken aback by the announcement made by the Vice President of the Government of Southern Sudan that there was a breakthrough on the referendum law. Some of us had feared that the obstinate position of the NCP would not be budged. Although the agreement is yet to be ratified, at least the Sudanese populace is reassured by the news and the fear that war was going to start soon is for now swayed. I applaud both parties for taking courageous steps to bring about this agreement and end the deadlock on this issue. Even though many issues remained unresolved, there is hope that this trend will continue. Nevertheless, I am a little unconvinced about some of the terms of this agreement.

Informed by the track record of the NCP; abrogation of Addis Ababa Agreement, 1997 Peace Agreement, and the many challenges that have yet to be overcome with the implementation of the CPA, I am reluctant to trust the NCP yet. There are three key points that have raised my eyebrows: 1) The inclusiveness of all Southerners in the referendum, 2) The NCP’s willingness to ignore census results for the referendum, and 3) The two-third quorum. The three points are discussed below.

First, why is the NCP willing to include all the Southerners together with those in the Diaspora in the referendum? Is it because they really care about the Southerners everywhere to be involved in their democratic rights? Or is it something calculated to try and rig the results of the referendum? I personally believe it is the later. I might be judging the agreement prematurely, but I think the Government needs to define what makes a person a Southerner? What qualifies you as a voter in the referendum? How do we verify if a person in the Diaspora is truly a Southerner before he or she casts his or her vote? Who is going to verify this? Perhaps the NCP is setting up fictitious southerners somewhere to tilt the referendum outcome in favor of unity and that is why they want to have loosely defined terms of citizenship and to try to make it impossible for GOSS to control the voting process; making it liable to fraud and manipulation.

Second, we thought the issue of census was controversial with regards to the process of election. Although the Government of Southern Sudan has rejected the outcome of the census, NCP has insisted all along that the 2010 election should be based on the recent census results particularly to allocate electoral constituents, power sharing in the Government of National Unity, and the Wealth Sharing. For the NCP to say that the results of the census will not be used in the referendum; something is wrong. This is politics being played hardcore. Why this inconsistency? I would welcome it if the census results are annulled once and for all because Southern Sudan is going to conduct its own census anyway if it becomes independent and I would expect the same in the North. However, if the census results are going to be used, that must also apply for the referendum. This is important because the NCP shot its own feet when they under estimated the population of Southerners living in the North at 500,000. The NCP doesn’t want to use the census results because they want to rig the referendum results by allowing Arabs and non-Southerners to vote in the referendum in order to alter the outcome. I urge the Southerners to watch out for this because the NCP is trying to swindle people in this area. The NCP is trying to dupe people and attain unattractive unity when they are not actually doing the work to make unity an attractive option for Southerners.

The third point I would like to make is that, I am really concerned about this issue with quorum. Why do we need a quorum? Why is it so important? Well, the NCP may be trying to buy time for their plan to mature. They know that they will step up their effort to cause more tribal warfare, ship more weapons to LRA, and buy more politicians and tribes to carry out their agenda. By the time the referendum arrives, many civilians would be too afraid to show up for the referendum vote such that the total turn out may be less than a quorum. Sixty days is a lot of time for them to finish whatever trick they have left in the bag to completely screw up the process. I read something yesterday in which the NCP indicated that if the Southerners vote for full independence, those Southerners in the North would automatically become foreigners. This is propaganda to scare those Southerners in the North to cast their votes where their mouths are les they become foreigners and forfeit whatever sub-citizen jobs they have in Khartoum.

In conclusion, intended in article to highlight some areas where the NCP will try to lay down their traps and tricks to get the Southerners to agree to something whose outcome is premeditated. I do not have any evidence to show that the NCP is playing hide and seek games with the SPLM, but there are some real threats to the referendum outcome and the Southern leaders need to look at them critically. Particularly, it is important to define who is a Southerner, which Southerner to vote and why, which Southerner should not vote and why, and who is going to run this process. I live in Diaspora and the only way would trust my vote to be counted correctly is if only the Southerners are handling the referendum. How do we know that the Egyptians are not going to vote if Southerners in Egypt are going to be allowed to vote? How do we know we can achieve 66% quorum if NCP is continuing to support LRA in Western Equatoria and causing instability in Central Equatoria and Jonglei states? These questions are critical and we should go even beyond the rhetoric of the NCP and investigate their motivation for accepting certain terms before we agree on anything.

The author is the Director of New Sudan Education Initiative and President of ALCOM. He can be reached at [email protected]