Sudan peace partners resolved to adopt referendum bill without alteration

By Ngor Arol Garang

December 25, 2009 (KHARTOUM) – Leaderships from the two peace partners, the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), and the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM), have agreed to adopt the Southern referendum bill without alteration.

Speaking to the press in Khartoum, Atem Garang, National Assembly Deputy Speaker on SPLM ticket said that both NCP and the SPLM have agreed to adopt Southern referendum bill without changes to the previously-agreed-upon draft by presidency.

However, NCP official, Ibrahim Ghandour, Secretary of Political Affairs revealed that the two parties have reached another consensus to introduce additional article allegedly intended to explain where southerners should vote but did not provide details.

The SPLM Secretary General Pagan Amum said that the two parties have agreed on the necessity to identify southern Sudanese who settled in the north before 1956 based on their regions of origin in the south.

He went further to say that voting centres will be distributed as one centre for every twenty thousand southern Sudanese all over the country, and if there are fewer voters than 20,000 in an area, there will be a polling centre in the capital of the state of the county. He said that the right to vote for all southerners is guaranteed.

Amum also confirmed consensus to adopt southern referendum bill as previously approved by National council of ministers and presidency. He said SPLM parliamentary bloc members, who walked out of parliament during hours leading to passage of the bill on Tuesday, will now resume their functions to attend passage of all referendum bills and popular consultation bills for Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile area.

But he made no mention of the resumption of the other Southern Sudan political forces and alliances which walked out the parliament protesting changes made to the bill.

On Tuesday the NCP legislators modified the bill after it was agreed on in the Council of Ministers and also in the Presidency. The approved bill cancelled an article stipulating that southerners who reside outside the region will have to register and vote only in South Sudan.

The chairman of referendum sub-committee Badriya Suleiman said this article violates the interim constitution particularly the article related to freedom of movement.

The National Assembly speaker Ahmed Ibrahim Al-Tahir told the NCP newspaper Al-Raed that the bill adopted was not signed by him making it technically subject to changes.

(ST)