Referendum official calls for intensive voters’ education
October 25, 2010 (JUBA) – The Southern Sudan Referendum Bureau has asked civil society organizations must step up efforts to creating awareness of Sudan’s forthcoming referendum, if the event is to be successfully conducted
The south’s self determination referendum, due to take place in January is a key part of Sudan’s 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended over two decades of a bloody civil war fought between north and south.
The UN estimate that two million people died, while an estimated four million are thought to have been displaced during what was Africa’s longest civil war.
Meanwhile, the referendum bureau official dismissed speculation that the January vote could be postponed.
He said that people spreading the rumor were enemies of peace and stability in the semi-autonomous region.
“The alleged reports of possible postponement in the press are mere lies that are meant to cause confusion ahead of the voter registration,” Maccar said.
However he hinted that voter registration for the poll may be extended by two or three days due to rain and logistical challenges.
Voters’ registration is due to begin 14 November and end on 4 December.
Many in the south have called for southerners in the Sudan’s capital Khartoum and other parts of the north to return to the south to register to vote.
Recently, the southern government allocated about SDG 30m (about $12.5m) to facilitate the repatriation of IDPs from the north back to South Sudan.
The move is being handled by officials from the Humanitarian and Disaster Management Ministry in partnership with International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The Executive Director for Upper Nile Youth Mobilization for Peace and Development Agency (UNYMPDA), John Chol Mamuth, expressed concern over the fate of the estimated 1.5 million Southern Sudanese living in northern Sudan.
Mamuth urged government and humanitarian agencies to speed up processes to repatriate internally displaced people.
Last week, a coalition of civil society activists on called for the timely conduct of the southern referendum and the vote in the oil-rich region of Abyei situated on the border of north and south.
The region on the will decide whether it wants to remain in the north or become part of what could be a newly independent south Sudan.
The coalition called the Civil Society Referendum Taskforce (CSRTF) also decried the “lack of trust” between the two parties the CPA, as this could derail prospects of fully implementing the remaining aspects of the peace agreement.
(ST)