SPLM may officially recommend to people of South Sudan one option between unity and secession

May 6, 2010 (JUBA) – The ruling political party in the semi-autonomous Southern Sudan, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), may soon be forced to take one official position between unity of Sudan and secession of the South to form its own independent country, says the Deputy Chairperson of the party and Vice President designate in the Government of South Sudan (GoSS).

Riek Machar, on Thursday, during his meeting with the visiting British Special Representative for Sudan, Michael O’neil, told the Envoy that unless the dominant National Congress Party (NCP) in the North refrained from taking official position on unity, the SPLM might be compelled to respond with a message of a recommended choice to the people of Southern Sudan

He did not however reveal exactly which choice between unity and secession the SPLM would want to recommend to the people.

The CPA says that unity would be made attractive during the six years of interim period before the referendum, but the final decision on whether it is made attractive or not would be entirely left to the people to freely judge it and should not be directed.

Dr. Machar however told the British diplomat that the just re-elected President of the Republic, Omer Hassan Al-Bashir, has recently declared that he would now, after the elections, personally campaign vigorously in the South with a specific message of telling the people to vote for unity.

He said the SPLM had promised the people of Southern Sudan during the elections to take them to the referendum if the party is elected and this should have been based on the free will of the people to either choose to confirm the current unity of Sudan or opt for independence.

Unless the National Congress Party stops being partial in the matter, he warned, the issue would more likely cause a serious controversy in the coming period during which both partners may take specific official positions between the two choices and carry their respective messages to the people.

In his earlier meeting on Wednesday with the US Special Envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration, Dr. Machar also expressed the need for the referendum in Southern Sudan and in Abyei to take place in mid December 2010 so that there is sufficient time for the seven days of polling, counting of ballot papers, transporting ballot boxes and compiling the final results. He said the final result would be announced on the CPA’s Day, 9th of January, early next year, but doubted the position of the NCP on this.

He also expressed the necessity for the people of Southern Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains to exercise their respective popular consultations before the South conducts the referendum on independence.

Machar said the time was running out and that the referendum commissions should be formed so that voter registration process should take place in July this year.

He further explained that if the referendum results were to be announced on 9th January, the two parties would then embark on implementing any post-referendum arrangements from 10th January to 9th July 2011, when the CPA shall have expired.

Despite the current trend suggesting that majority of the people in the South would vote for independence, he said the Southern Sudan leadership would want to see a politically and economically stable Northern Sudan which would continue to build and maintain good relations with the South as peaceful and prosperous neighbors.

(ST)