NCP in hot water

By Zechariah Manyok Biar

December 23, 2009 — On December 22, 2009, the National Congress Party (NCP) passed the Referendum Bill that forced the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and other South Sudan political parties to storm out of Parliament because of the amendment that was done in the bill without SPLM’s consent. A day before that, NCP passed Security Bill that the First Vice President of Sudan and the President of South Sudan Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit is expected to veto because it was filibustered by all SPLM’s members of Parliament (MPs) after other political parties in the North had left the Parliament in protest. Now the question that many people ask themselves is whether the NCP is winning because it has majority of MPs in the Parliament or the other political parties, including SPLM, are winning in exposing the real nature of NCP to the whole world. The answer depends on the beholder. But we have to look into the issue before I tell you what I think.

Even though the Speaker of Sudanese Parliament boasted of the victory of having finally passed what he called the most tedious and tiresome referendum law, tiresome events have not yet gone with the bill. NCP has a lot of mental work to do until the time that the referendum arrives. The scores of events that happened this month have eliminated the doubt that many people outside Sudan had about the sincerity of SPLM’s claim that NCP cannot be trusted. The iron-handed rule that forced Southerners into the bush less than thirty years ago remains unchanged in the current Sudan. Things that NCP had been doing and coating them with honey have now been exposed by the urgency of time.

The limited engagement of NCP by the coalition of opposition parties has left NCP with no choice apart from showing its deceptive nature. NCP may have been telling the whole world that SPLM was the one unwilling to give peace a chance in Sudan, but now it is clear that NCP is determined to cheat at every level. But NCP’s trick is a naked one.

Miraya FM reported on December 23, 2009 that “The United State has expressed its concern over the endorsement of South Sudan referendum bill in Parliament on Tuesday with some text added by the National Congress Party that is different from the agreed language of the CPA.” The concern is not just a mental expression of disappointment from the US officials; the statement that the US Embassy in Khartoum issued described NCP’s move as “undermining the peace process.” That statement shows how US officials in Khartoum are now practically admitting that they know where the problem is between NCP and South Sudan’s political parties. The US officials point out that the passing of the referendum bill, despite filibuster from SPLM, “jeopardizes CPA implementation and risks renewed political hostility between the parties.”

Now according to the report from the Yahoo news report, the Vice President of South Sudan Dr. Riek Machar said this about the new agreement his team has reached with NCP: “We agreed on the fact that the law on the referendum will be resubmitted to parliament on Monday to be adopted with the article that had been removed.” The specific day the Sudanese Parliament is going to vote again on the referendum bill is Monday, December 28, 2009. That means a Parliamentary majority’s passing of laws that concerned South Sudan cannot be as easy as the Sudanese Speaker of Parliament always dreams about. South Sudan is like a separate nation and nobody can put mechanical strategies of cheating in place and thinks that he or she will get away with them.

Now what the NCP has done is nothing more than shooting itself in the foot. The world is now aware of NCP’s intentions. That means NCP has earned itself many sharp eyes that will watch at it closely during both the upcoming elections and the referendum, giving it very limited chances of winning an internationally-recognized victories!

Even if the passing of the referendum bill remains unchanged, NCP cannot get what it is wishing for. The wish of NCP is that it will have more influence on Southerners living in the North more than it will have influence on South Sudanese living in the South. NCP’s officials are aiming at rigging the referendum results in 2011 in the name of Southerners living in the North. But the fact is that we in the South can easily develop mechanisms that will make such a wish a mere dream for NCP.

South Sudanese belong to tribes. Not only do we know our tribal members living in the North, regardless of whether they were born there or not, we also know our tribal members living in the Diaspora. We can register our people living in the North by tribes and clans. Anybody who claims to be a Southerner and does not know his or her clan cannot register as a Southerner because our tribes would be our password. If we know our people in the North, then we can calculate clearly what percentage they have and make sure that we influence half of them to vote in the way that we want in the South, because they know that their citizenship in the North will end if South Sudan becomes a different nation in 2011. So what benefit will Khartoum get?

I urge SPLM to keep on engaging NCP without backing down on what Southerners strongly believe as their rights until the world clearly understands why Southerners want to be left alone this time. NCP is going to decide whether to keep on exposing its nature or agrees with a genuine democratic transformation in Sudan.

To me, NCP’s officials are now losing the political battle that they have always been thinking of winning and SPLM is winning.

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]