Low voter registration turnout in South Sudan trigger extension calls
By James Gatdet Dak
November 6, 2009 (JUBA) – Southern Sudan is hit by very low voters’ registration turnout as the region prepares for its first post-war general elections due in six months.
Officials of the semi-autonomous region say some of the registration centers in Southern Sudan have remained almost empty for the last one week while others with the maximum of less than a hundred voters to register per day as the turnout has been very low.
Even in the capital, Juba, turnout has been very low with daily average of only 30 people according to registration team leaders.
David Lukudu, a team leader at Naira Secondary School registration center revealed that his team had been registering an average of 15 people per day.
Other centers reveal that for the last one week they have managed to register only 200 to 300 people, respectively.
The Council of Ministers has resolved to request for 30 days extension of the registration exercise to try to mobilize and register a good number of voters, says the minister of Information and Broadcasting, Paul Mayom Akech.
“Voters’ registration is not going on as desired generally in Southern Sudan. There is practically difficulty,” said the official spokesperson.
In the Friday’s Council of Ministers meeting chaired by President Salva Kiir Mayardit, the cabinet discussed the seriousness of the matter by identifying some of the main challenges and taking a number of measures to try to remedy the situation.
Mayom enumerated the causes for the turnout failure ranging from lack of earlier voters’ registration campaign and logistics, insecurity and unavailability of finances among others.
He also added that the registration forms were availed by the National Elections Commission (NEC) in accordance with the rejected results of the Southern Sudan population consensus of 2008 and therefore were insufficient and could not reach many localities in the region.
He called on NEC to avail the needed resources for the registration of voters.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) ruled semi-autonomous government also complains about the registration exercise being dominated by members of the National Congress Party (NCP).
According to the resolution, President Kiir will instruct the Speaker of the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly to adjourn the parliamentary sessions and allow the members of parliament to travel to their respective constituencies and mobilize the people to register.
A multi-political party ministerial committee comprising about eight ministers was also formed to move across the region to monitor the registration exercises.
All the political parties were encouraged to mobilize their supporters to register.
Kiir also reiterated his call on the state governors to allow all the political parties to freely carry out their activities in exercising their democratic rights.
He earlier called on the potential voters to register irrespective of their political parties affiliations in order to vote into office leaders of their choices.
“Vote for the leaders of your choice that will take you to referendum,” he said.
The ruling political party in the South, SPLM, had earlier declared its position to contest for all political seats in the country including the post of the incumbent President of the Republic Omer Hassan Al-Bashir.
The interim period elections, brought about by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), serves as a milestone in the process of democratic transformation in the country, pending the conduct of January 2011 referendum in the South to either confirm the current unity of Sudan or create a separate independent country.
(ST)
oshay
Low voter registration turnout in South Sudan trigger extension calls
AAHAHAHAHAHHAHA Shame on the SPLM I knew the South would never secede no one wants to vote for it and for once they can’t blame the NCP , greedy dinka are now crying ahahahahahahaha
BUSTA 2
Low voter registration turnout in South Sudan trigger extension calls
Who care if Southerners do not register???
Though Southerners fail to register, H.E Bashir will still be the winner due to the fact, there is no capable person in South Sudan leave alone the cowboy who has failed to displine his boy.
Brother in Christ,
Busta 2
Mr Famous Big_Logic_Boy
Low voter registration turnout in South Sudan trigger extension calls
No worries, If dinkas don’t change the government to doctors and honourable nothing is going to happen. Who on earth will registrater if their land is under threat of occupy by dinkas and some are being threaten. Let Kiir send his DINKA AIRWAY to pick his dream people in Uganda, Congo, Kenya, USA, UK, AUS, NZ and others to register for him. Learn from this, and get prepare to face the thruth don’t send your dinkas to kakuma, Koboko again. This is your moment to confront with arabs exchanging bullets. We have played our game ie liberate you dinkas ladies to abuse the power in South Sudan and sending negative reputation of South Sudanese into the international community.
Oduck Bol
Low voter registration turnout in South Sudan trigger extension calls
This is not a surprise for the civilian who know what has been going on in the south Sudan. I think people do not know who are the candidates in South Sudan as I do not know until now,because I do not want my vote to go to a useless person who will not provide security to the nation of south or my families.If you register now then in at time of election your name can be mark to someone you do not know.
Kamaan
Low voter registration turnout in South Sudan trigger extension calls
The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement as a ruling political party in the South will win the election, whether voters turnout is that low, but an increase will come sooner before November 30, 2009 as a last day of registration.
This Sudan Election will not be won because people are Doctors or whatsoever, but realities will work. Look, Sudan has been ruled by the one never attended Graduate School. Will he win because he has a doctor degree or undergraduate degree?
This SPLM political Party is not Dinka, but us as Southern people, those who excluded themselves, it is their own opinion. We don’t want Dinka to be positioned that higher, they have portion as us as others in the South Sudan. If you fail, never say Dinka, and if you win, never say again Dinka, but us as whole.
South Sudan is not known to Arab as Dinka, but all.
Deng Wel Deng
Low voter registration turnout in South Sudan trigger extension calls
It is not strange to hear this happening in sudan as election is seen as worthless to expression of sudan people rights to choose their government as the will be rigged by NCP. People should be made aware of the crucial exercise that is coming up after this curtain. This is clear indication that people are led by the government of few criminals not massive government of people in sudan.
Gatwech
Low voter registration turnout in South Sudan trigger extension calls
Dear readers,
SPLM as the ruling party in the South and custodian of the people, at least during this interim period, has not learned from its past mistakes. Take the census failure for example, the same mistakes that failed the census are repeating themselves in the preparatory process for the presidential and parliamentary elections, etc.
The census failed partly because of the SPLM contradictions to whether conduct it or boycott it until further notice. In the last minute, Kiir came back from Khartoum and went to Juba telling the South to get ready in two weeks for the census. Issues of logistics, insecurity, rainny season, poorly trained renumerators, etc were not resolved by then. The proccess was aborted.
Now, the SPLM is at it again. They send negative signals that they may boycott the elections. They have failed to declare their candidates to the citizens. Now the result is that of low voter turnout all over the South. Citizens are not interested because they are in delemma. They don’t know who to vote for and whether or not the elections will really take place. Until the SPLM declares its candidates for Khartoum and Juba, citizens will have doubts in the elections.
It is a must that whoever is not registered will not vote. Only registered voters will be allowed to vote. This is internationally known. This means that with the low voter turnout, SPLM will forget to win the Khartoum seat since its stronghold is the South. If few southerners are going to vote, how will its candidate defeat Bashir? It will also lose several seats in the national assembly. In the South also if only supporters of other political parties register, then the SPLM will fail in the South too.
But wait a minute, why is the SPLM doing this? Why does the party refuse to declare its candidates at this stage? May be the SPLM leaders want to know the level of turnout first before declaring their candidates. This means that if the turnout is low, then the party may nominate somebody in mind that he is going to fail the contest against Bashir. Some SPLM tribal leaders may also sneak the voter registration forms only to their constituencies (strict supporters) to have more voters ready to vote for him or her over his or her potential contestant.
If it is the logistics, lack of awareness among potential voters and financial issues, didn’t the SPLM prepare for them? These are what I call internal mechanisms. If logistics and finances were made available where would the problem come from? I believe that the South would get support from its foreign friends if the SPLM was seen to be serious in the elections. And if potential voters were made aware through mobilization of the importance of registration, where would the problem come from? If candidates were declared to trigger the interests of the potential voters to vote for them, where would the problem come from? Instead of being always reactionary in the late hour, the SPLM must learn to be pro-active.
This is why it is important even during the referendum to concentrate on internal mechanisms. People talks of 66% turnout for referendum bill. This is not the problem. Even 51% turnout without effective internal mechanisms would also fail. What the SPLM and other political parties need most are seriousness and effective internal mechanisms for the success of any democratic process.
BEN-ALEX PIRAMOE
Low voter registration turnout in South Sudan trigger extension calls
I knew and i sow it when i went for registration in our registration centre it is true that the registration of voters in southern sudan is low this is because the system going on for registration in southern sudan will never succed of asking things like nationality, passports and many other things in order for one to qualify for registration to be a voter of the coming election which is IMPOSSIBLE to all the southerners because not all people got access to entered to the hole of money so mark this you are fighting for seperation, which seperation will turn to opposit we shall still go with the fuckin unity of sudan and that will be the time we shall learne a big lesson one you never forget so let the government of southern sudan relise it mistake and release a secret for this issue because what am seeing going through in this registration is an fair i sow it in many registration centres take it for example greater kapoeta if expected 40% be ready to have a result of 19% registered so believe we shall never go ahead no one will even bather for the election at all in southern sudan if the arabs are registering dead people and under age for the case of winning so for us we have less resonable mines to think even a mile
Hillary B.M.L,M
Low voter registration turnout in South Sudan trigger extension calls
How can we register to vote while going hungry? To make thing alright, that greedy Government must be Change. In Khartoum most if not all Southerners don’t speak or chat about Election, this indicate that Southerners are not serous simply because there is no clear Political Stand and stability in South Sudan, Killing here,death there, these summed up to frustration.
THANKS: I am a Southerner.