Democracy should accommodate Independent Candidacy

By Justin Ambago Ramba

February 4, 2010 — Candidates running as independents are an old political phenomenon in the Sudanese politic with its roots dating back to the early Sudanese elections right in the fifties, and it is not a new thing at all.

However this issue has dominated the media as some candidates who missed out from their party’s nominations have for one reason or the other decided to challenge their parties by contesting independently.

The importance of this particular issue rises from the reality that the electoral process itself has been absent from the Sudanese politics for quite a long time thus creating awareness gaps between both the parties and their individual members.

Members of political parties are free to run as independents provided that it is accepted by their parties. The commonest scenarios in the past were to have a candidate running as an independent in a constituency that are often hostile to certain political parties.

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005 between the SPLM and the NCP; besides bringing an end to an otherwise destructive war, it also aimed to move the Sudan from that dark political stagnation where only one view dominated over the country’s politics for couple of decades.

In other wards CPA was about finding solutions to the Sudanese problems through democratization where eventually the ballot would replace the bullet in political decision making. This was how the agreement was perceived and to everybody understands, but of course old habits die hard.

All political organisations that were totalitarian in their structures and functions thus practising absolute control over all political thoughts and ideologies are now finding it difficult to maintain their huge memberships which were drawn from groups of different ideological backgrounds only brought together by purposes of convenience.

The political space now allowed in the CPA, will not only affect the SPLM in south Sudan, but it will as well affect even the NCP in the entire country where its memberships have been seen readjusting their positions, as seen in some constituencies in the south where NCP, Umma, and other parties lost due to mass defections to the SPLM, while the latter suffers massive rise of independent candidates from its ranks against official party candidates.

This democratization process which lies in the centre of the CPA document needs to be taken seriously especially so by the so –called dominant political parties including the peace partners of course.

The right understanding should expect of the previously existing political structures in the Sudan to undergo an internal democratic transformation before in order to cope up with new developments before they could come out to campaign for an effective change in the Sudanese political landscape.

The CPA document is available for everyone to read and interpret. It would be a wrong assumption that the agreement can only be interpreted by some officials in an act to monopolize knowledge and ownership. The monopoly of interpretation has long gone with the old days of the Holy Books, and even the strictest religions are now free to interpretations.

Those sons and daughters of south Sudan who have clearly declared their positions to stand as independent candidates deserve their due respect and recognition as fair contestants. However they must work in conjunction with which ever parties they belong to, but should their decision not receive the parties’ recognition, then it is only a civilized practice for them to resign their party memberships or accept being dismissed without making a fuss of it.

For obvious reasons I wouldn’t be wasting anyone’s time by discussing how for democracy should prevail in al Dammar or al Rahad or al Managil. Mentally I have already seceded from these places, so don’t ask me why I don’t write about them here.

The hope is that we rightly understand that our image as south Sudanese needs to be kept well in the international arena. We must above everything else establish a fact that we are not only running after the establishment of yet another banana state. Those emissaries running our luxurious liaison offices all over the world capitals have to see to it that they do their best to reflect our image as a people capable of governing itself democratically.

South Sudanese have a national responsibility to reflect to the international community that they are a law abiding people and not a warrior nation on a perpetual inter-tribal confrontations. We have to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that we actually believe in those democratic values that we constantly keep accusing the northern NCP of Omer al Bashir for obstructing it.

Our commitment here can only be demonstrated through the practice of democracy itself, showing inclusiveness, accepting plurality, tolerance and the recognition of the other within our territory of the south.

All the political parties in south Sudan need an understanding of their grassroots and act according to what appeals to them. Rigid ideological boxes many not be the ideal to contain the multi-faceted south Sudanese communities. We need to practice a great deal of flexibility and true recognition of the role generated by our masses.

The essence of having democratic elections is to bring up leadership from the grassroots to come and decide policies in Juba and the other state capitals. They must be the people’s choices and not merely imposed people from higher authorities.

We must understand that though political parts have broader policies on almost everything from the providence of clean drinking water to the disposal of waste yet even at the lowest party level the people are aware of who best amongst their people can implement those party policies.

As such this issue of having independent candidates who have chosen to compete against their colleagues from the same party, though still an internal party affairs, however any major decisions made in one political party is obvious to affect the whole political atmosphere in the nation.

And while we struggle to sow the seeds of democratic system of governance in the Sudan, we in the south are much more in need of such transformations because we are joining an advance world at a time that much has been achieved by the human race. We are not going to be allowed to go back in time to start our development neither is the world around us ready to turning the clock of history back to the 17th century for us to catch up.

All political parties are free to dismiss their non conforming members in ways that suit them best and that is entirely an internal party matter, however whichever way it goes, there must to consideration to respect each citizen’s full rights to freely exercise they rights in everything including running for any political posts. No group should attempt to harass break away candidates’ otherwise that would be a breach of the constitution.

We hope that the 57 days of campaign that starts from February 13th shall come to pass peaceful. All parties are on record for receiving defectors from rival parties but of course, we also know how painful it is to provide one. Yet our appeal is that issues are tackled responsibly and with a high degree of civility.

Dr. Justin Ambago Ramba, M.B, B.Ch, D.R.H, MD. The Secretary General of the United South Sudan Party (USSP) He can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected]