Sudan’s elections: Nothing was “learned from experience”
By Ahmed Elzobier
April 21, 2010 — You can tell that a country is in big trouble when diplomats and foreign visitors arrive frequently, not to discuss bilateral relations in the normal way, but to help in resolving the visited country’s own domestic problems. This is also a constant reminder that the country, despite the many peace agreements, is still at war with itself. Since January 2010, the USA, China, the African Union, Russia, Britain, Qatar, Egypt, Libya and Iran have all sent their envoys to discuss Sudan’s problems. Two peacekeeping missions comprising about 35 thousand UN troops now operate in Sudan. Legions of think tanks and experts make it a habit to advice the Sudanese on how to resolve their differences and tackle their problems. All major cities in the region have been visited by teams of negotiators from Abuja, Addis Abba, Nairobi, Kampala, Arusha, Naivasha, Cairo, Tripoli, Doha, Asmara, Paris, London, Washington and Moscow.
For the last five years this country has become the hub of talking shops in the region as endless workshops, seminars, conferences, meetings and symposiums have consumed millions of dollars with very little result. The lucky elites, however, take pleasure in the fact that they are needed by foreign organizations to talk about their country’s dilemma. Some of them become addicted to per-diems and the trappings of free tourism. Those who need to be helped despite their long titles and PhDs, seem helpless, as the country’s political class sets for itself a remarkably low standard which it consistently fails to achieve.
Entering the elections period, the political scene in Sudan is more than usually chaotic and marred with a range of conflicting positions and confusing, farcical scenes all over the place. Opposition parties are caught in an impossible position; they are literally trapped in a binary choice of “boycott” or “participate” in the elections. The elections themselves seem to mean different things to different stakeholders. The SPLM view the elections as a step towards their ultimate goal – the referendum – in January 2011. The National Congress Party (NCP) desperately wants to find an illusive legitimacy at all costs and consolidate its power-base in the north. Opposition parties want democratic transformation, or even the overthrow of the NCP’s regime in the north. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) sponsors like the USA, UK and Norway are keen to endorse the elections, regardless, as a milestone in the CPA implementation.
In the minds of its sponsors the CPA is “too big to fail”. The United States, the CPA’s main sponsor, and the European Union are worried that their investment in peace in Sudan may be lost to renewed conflict or instability. The bailout is simple; support the SPLM/NCP to muddle through no matter how flawed or sham the elections may be. “This Is Africa (TIA) you know”, some argue patronizingly, there is no “perfect election”, it will be “a step forward given Sudan’s context”. The ultimate aim is to achieve a “milestone”, that it keeps the SPLM/NCP in power until 2011 is merely an unfortunate side issue. The US State Department assistant secretary Philip Crowley was asked in a press briefing last week whether the U.S. is going to be ready to sign off on the results no matter how flawed the actual process. He answered, “What’s the alternative?”
Knowing this fact, the NCP’s cynical politicians meticulously built the infrastructure to rig the elections. In the process they intended to use the opposition parties as tokens of legitimacy, simpleton facilitators, support actors in an electoral pretence. Some of them figured out the trick and boycotted the process, but some deluded themselves and participated, as if they had never heard of Sun Tzu’s advice in The Art of War, “If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.”
Paul Collier, in his book The Bottom Billions, argued that, “democracy is not about elections. Indeed some of the rules of democracy are to determine how power is achieved, and that’s where elections come in. However, the abundance of resource rents alters how an electoral competition is conducted. Essentially, it lets in the politics of patronage”. Paul Collier said that patronage could be cost-effective if votes could be bought wholesale by bribing opinion makers and community leaders while, in comparison, the provision of public services is too expensive. The well-known Sudanese journalist Al Haj Warraq also noted this phenomenon and he wrote, “The patronage system in the centre has a network of corruption inside all political forces and elites in Sudan, including the marginalized elites. The patronage relationship is also one of the causes of the latest confusion among political parties towards the elections.”
The election results in Sudan simply confirmed Collier’s assumption that patronage politics in a resource-rich country that severely lacks any checks and balances will win hands down anytime, anywhere, compared to any other form of public appeal to voters. As dishonesty, corruption and fraud become acceptable they could also be valuable assets for self-serving politicians – “anyone has a price,” cynically quipped Ali Osman, the vice-president and the leader of the Islamic movement in Sudan. Elections in such an environment attract crooks and the most corrupt are always the winners, argued Collier. In stark contrast, in the first multiparty elections in Sudan in 1953, one candidate was prosecuted, although unsuccessfully, for buying tea and cakes for voters. Now you can buy a whole village and nobody will care. Also, since 1953 Sudanese public servants have organized five multi-party liberal elections with a great degree of integrity and professionalism, noted the Rift Valley Institute (the “Elections in Sudan: Learning from Experience” report). But in the 2010 elections the National Elections Commission has been accused almost unanimously by all political parties for its incompetence, corruption and lack of independence.
Most political parties, including the SPLM, and many Sudanese civil societies and human rights organizations have cited scores of worrying deficiencies with the overall election process, including: the Elections Act, the formation of the National Election Commission, the demarcation of constituencies, the voter registration period, the declarations of candidacy, the campaigning process, and finally, the voting process itself. Nevertheless, the European Union Elections Observation Mission to Sudan at the Carter Centre last week announced merely that Sudan’s elections did not meet international standards, a mild slap on the wrist for a naughty little boy. Now, will the international community accept the result? Of course they will, do not forget that it is a “milestone” after all.
However, and most importantly, the outcome of these elections has been regarded by most ordinary Sudanese in the north with apathy at best, cynicism and disgust at worst. Sadly, it seems in 2010 elections in Sudan nothing has been leaned from experience. Sorry Rift Valley but this student had failed the elections test*.
*Video election’s committee in eastern Sudan working heavily to fill ballot boxes: http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=K-QQne7xXhs&feature=player_ embedded
The author is a Sudan Tribune journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]