Egypt seeking a delay to Sudan national elections & referendum: report
February 22, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The Egyptian government is seeking to convince the two major partners in Sudan’s government of national unity to delay both the national elections and the referendum in the South of the country, a newspaper reported today.
The London based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper quoted informed sources in Khartoum as saying that the proposal was put forward during the summit hosted by Cairo between the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) over the last three days.
Sudan Tribune on its end has been able to confirm that Cairo has proposed a postponement to elections.
The Egyptian spy chief Omer Suleiman is sponsoring the meeting and facilitating the dialogue.
The NCP delegation at the conference was headed by Sudanese presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie and SPLM by its Secretary General Pagan Amum. Egyptian state media said that the purpose of the meeting is “to meet the challenges experienced by the Sudan and strengthen the unity and stability of Darfur to provide security and stability throughout the country”.
One of the major points of disagreements between the two sides according to Egyptian media is the application of the Islamic Shari’a law in the country.
The Sudanese Undersecretary of Foreign affairs Mutrif Sideeg and member of the NCP delegation said that this position is not negotiable.
“We will not abandon our Shari’a nor do we call on the others to accept what they do not accept. We accepted the principle that citizenship is the basis of rights and duties, and we have accepted the principle of unity in diversity, and therefore will not commit others to what we are committed to. We do not accept that the others void our personality, religion and identity under any circumstances,” he said.
Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper said that Cairo proposed postponing the national elections scheduled for April and the 2011 referendum pending resolution of the North-South disputed items and a peaceful settlement to the Darfur crisis.
However, an official at the National Elections Committee (NEC) told the newspaper that such a move would create confusion in the whole process which was already rescheduled two times.
The former Prime Minister Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi told reporters after meeting with SPLM Chairman and South Sudan president Salva Kiir that it is preferable to push elections in order to give time for peace to be realized in Darfur.
Last week the Sudanese government signed a preliminary framework agreement in Ndjamena with Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) that provides for a temporary ceasefire and sets groundwork on which negotiations can commence. Items include humanitarian issues, IDP’s, wealth and power sharing, release of Darfuri war prisoners.
On Tuesday a signing ceremony will take place in Doha with the presence of Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir, JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim, Chadian president Idriss Deby, Eritrean president Isaias Afewerki and Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa.
The US special envoy to Sudan Scott Gration will also be present, the US State department said today.
A senior JEM official told Sudan Tribune over the weekend that it is all but certain that Khartoum would agree to reschedule the elections. Another source in Doha said that JEM will seek a five years delay during the formal negotiations with Khartoum to prepare the country for the polls.
The NCP has been adamant about keeping the elections date as is but any power sharing accord with JEM will fail to materialize without a postponement.
Last week the NEC deputy chief stressed during a meeting with Gration that the Doha accord will not change the elections timetable.
Observers say that if elections are delayed then the earliest they can be held is in November following the rainy season in large parts of Sudan. However any such move will cast doubts over the 2011 self determination referendum in the South of the country.
The SPLM has vehemently refused any move to postpone the referendum process and many think tank groups fear a return to civil war should the self determination process be disrupted. However, many post-referendum issues have yet to be addressed particularly nationality, national debt, water agreement with the border demarcation process well behind schedule.
(ST)
Dinka Boy
Egypt seeking a delay to Sudan national elections & referendum: report
We Southerners do not want election to be pospones as well as referendum.
SPLM is done with the rubbish of North.
Sharia law! what?.
This country is automatical seperated.
Gatmi raan
Egypt seeking a delay to Sudan national elections & referendum: report
To: Goss & SPLM ruling party
Any delay election that affects the referendum is uncceptable and should be outright rejected by you (the ruling party in the South) to do otherwise will be the end of you ( the leadership). and i mean it!!!!!!! let me clearly say it…. any body would agreed of this prospect of delaying the referndum will be ”DEAD’ before they reached back to the South Sudan soil!!!!!!!
Space
Egypt seeking a delay to Sudan national elections & referendum: report
Dea Southerners
Egyptians want to allow Bashir time to revers and build confident among Darfurians for acceptancy which may earned him victory in the region. Such intelliginet move should and must not be acepted by SPLM/GOSS. Elections and referendums should be held as scheduled. If we keep on postponing, then CPA serve no purpose and will even be cancelled sooner or latter. Any move of delyment tactic is a call for Universal Declaration of Independent for South Sudan.
Gatwech
Egypt seeking a delay to Sudan national elections & referendum: report
Dear readers,
Unless you don’t digest the article from the analytical lense, the election is postponed. Finished!!!
Please read and analyze the quoted statements below:
“The former Prime Minister Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi told reporters after meeting with SPLM Chairman and South Sudan president Salva Kiir that it is preferable to push elections in order to give time for peace to be realized in Darfur.”
This means Salva Kiir and Sadiq Al-Mahdi have secretly agreed to postpone the elections.
“A senior JEM official told Sudan Tribune over the weekend that it is all but certain that Khartoum would agree to reschedule the elections. Another source in Doha said that JEM will seek a five years delay during the formal negotiations with Khartoum to prepare the country for the polls.”
This means Khartoum has revealed to JEM that it would certainly agree to the postponement of the elections.
The meeting between JEM and Khartoum was also blessed by the American Envoy, Scott Gration.
Egypt also wants elections postponed and met with SPLM SG Pagan Amum and NCP D/Chairman, Dr. Nafie Ali Nafie.
If you combine such gestures from all those leaders from SPLM, NCP, JEM, Egypt, US, etc., you would definitely come to conclusion that the elections will be postponed.
But until when? We don’t need any postponement that would affect the conduct of the referendum. Let the NCP and SPLM plus those international bodies agree the indefinite postponement of the elections but the referendum has to be conducted in January as scheduled.
Period!!!
Campaigners, stop wasting your money for elections campaign. It is over!!!
If you
Justin Chicago opiny
Egypt seeking a delay to Sudan national elections & referendum: report
We are tired of the Egyptians pocking their noses in the the affairs of other countries especially sudan.We know who you people are we as southerners will go the same way the sudan proper gained her independece by unilateral declaration of independent of the south as you do not care and is only thinking of Islam and the water from the Nile. Water down your thirst of interferring in the affairs of another country we have had enough of you and can not take it any
more. What did you do to our people in your country.There is no time to play dirty politics now the elections will go a head as planned and so will the referendum period.
choldit
Egypt seeking a delay to Sudan national elections & referendum: report
If you people didn’t realised South Sudan problem, it is in the paragraph quoted below. What is it that Sadiq Mahdi get from Salva Kirr that leaded him to make this comment to media reports.
“The former Prime Minister Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi told reporters after meeting with SPLM Chairman and South Sudan president Salva Kiir that it is preferable to push elections in order to give time for peace to be realized in Darfur.”
Are we Southerners biting the same drum with our leader Salva Kirr and his group? What is behind $200millions Salva Kirr get from Presidency?
The Arab are now united as Arab within Sudan and around the World against the South Sudan that is why:
the Egypt has come up with this confusing conference which the SPLM should have rejected;
Qatar is facilitating this peace which betray heros and heroines of the Dafur;
the NCP engaged USA in normalisation of their relationship;
the North is carrying out a string compaign to deceive Countries bordering Sudan; and
NCP cut the next of the Southern Sudan by meeting Salva Kirr and give him $$$Millions of which $200millions is revealed.
But on other hand the South Sudan leaders are busy thinking about:
whether Dr. Riek Machar will be a South Sudan president if Kirr went to stand against Bashier in Federal government? How can we sideline Dr. Machar and include Paulino Matip and Monytuel in electrol Committee so that they will be blame later with the outcome of the election?
What happen to Salva Kirr’s presidency if election go ahead or postponed? or if Dr. Lam Akol is allow to compaign in the South? or General Dau or General Gatluak Deng is allowed to be a governor?
How can we stop SPLM independent candidates? and
All the useless ideas that are mand to disadvantaged the people of South Sudan at the grassroot. Where in the world that a sensible minded South Sudanese can get to sleep. Last night I stay unsleep from evening to 7:10am of the next day without notice. Thinking whether my fallen friends life is in vain or the soil of this national will previal(yes, that is emotional but it is one way of human’s …)
Those who are in leadership for money should have second thought now!!! It is time for real work to be done by leaders of “Bright Star Compaign” and other betallions in SPLA. There is no need to talk about whether there are election in April 2010 and referundum in January 2011 or not. If the Arab and the rest of the world think we are not part of them the Southern Sudan leadership should prepare us for the worst else all those programmes are designed to confuse the mindless Sudanese who still listen to Egypt who still inveded Albega (excuse my spelling) triangle.
Salva or Pagan if they accept the postponment of the election or referundum, they have to stay in North Sudan or Egypt and never set a foot in the South Sudan land forever. Else they should go to where the bought their families palaces in the West e.g. Australia and other places. They must not buy out this land to Arab.
Kur
Egypt seeking a delay to Sudan national elections & referendum: report
They can delay their elections in the North if they want to, but any move to delay the referundun will be met with all forms of resistance. The SpLM leadership must be careful here. We will never forgive anybody who will compromise our freedom. We were not created by God to please amd meet the needs of others while we suffer all kinds of humiliation. Egypt must take off its nose from our affairs. The referundum will only be delayed over our dead bodies.
Kur
Time1
Egypt seeking a delay to Sudan national elections & referendum: report
What is tyhe reason as to why t he elections should be suspended? because no one is going to wait for anyone,sign peace today in Darfur will not nessesarily make the parties there make any gains in elections, also we should not expect people to go back every step to start over again, because all this process comes with alot of costs behind it, to ask for postphonement means paying for all the loses which i think is too heavy to pay, how about we go back and do the census again? how about we go back and reappoint ministers again, i think it is very stupid to suggest that elections be suepended when there is no good reasons to do that.
But elections can be postphone if all parties agree to it and they also agree that the referendum will remain at its schedule date. or it can be made the other way round, referendum first then elections, it is up to the parties who can cancellation to decide which choices is good for them.
Rambang
Egypt seeking a delay to Sudan national elections & referendum: report
What is wrong with Egypt. Referendum is the only way chance South Sudanese got to free themselves from the slavery of the wickedness. I know Egypt is used to seeing slave like the did to Israelite those days, thank God they were given a beat-down during the Arabs-Israeli war.
Time1
Egypt seeking a delay to Sudan national elections & referendum: report
Egypt is trying its best, they have made more investment and rebuilding contributions in Sudan more than Europe. The countries which have contributed most are Kenya, Uganda, south Africa, and int he west may be only America. the Europeans are only talking about aid, they just want to show off, so the world can say that they got it all, but on the ground they have done nothing, Sudanese know who have been putting real investments and development projects on the ground, forget this Europeans who are showing off with some little oil in a can and some little flour and milk in bottles being distributed, then they want to thinkt hey have contributed, Is that what you call investment or development contribution to rebuilding Sudan, through distributing food in little cans and bottles?? is that really a contribution to be proud of? what a big shame to those who critisize others while they themselves are the worst evil and enemy of the people of Sudan.
Sudan need big roads, electricity projects, water and sanitations plants, rebuilding schools and hospitals, revanping the economic system and many more, then you have this fools here talking about aid that they distribute in small boxes, how is that going to bring all the above developments?
Continue stealing UN world money in the name of fighting hunger that is what you and your fake NGOs are used to, you are used to surviving on other peoples blood, look at China which has developed to be a super power without colonizing Africa or killing its people of pretending to be giving aid..