Carter Center calls for urgent action to ensure smooth referendum in South Sudan

October 30, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The U.S. based Carter Center warned this week that a number of steps need to be taken in order to ensure that the South Sudan self-determination referendum is done in a credible and transparent manner given the tight timeframe before the vote takes place in January.

The Carter Center released a report outlining several challenges being faced towards achieving this goal while welcoming the positive development of receiving voter material from print houses in South Africa and the start of training on voter registration procedures.

“The Center urged officials to accelerate preparations for the conduct of voter registration and the referendum, including the training of staff, distribution of materials, clarification of eligibility requirements, and the expansion of voter education,” said the center, headed by former US president Jimmy Carter.

“The Government of Sudan (GoS) and Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) should reconfirm their commitment to a genuine referendum process and urgently release funds to support this goal. Increased efforts should be made to conclude negotiations on critical post-referendum issues, and to inform Sudanese citizens about the potential impact of the vote”.

This week the head of the South Sudan referendum commission Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil which oversees the registration and voting process, said that it would be a “miracle” to hold the plebiscite as scheduled on January 9, 2011. He also complained that the lack of funding is hindering its work because it needs to hire some 10,800 polling staff and called on the national government and Government of South Sudan (GoSS) to provide the money as soon as possible.

The Carter Center echoed Khalil’s statements saying that all parties along with the international community “should urgently ensure that sufficient funds are made available to the referendum administration to support the holding of a genuine, credible referendum that adheres to the current referendum calendar”.

The first observer mission to begin work on the plebiscite, also said that both sides must stop inflammatory rhetoric that has spread fear that millions of people could end up stateless if the south votes to secede. It also urged the media to report the positive developments instead of focusing on the negatives.

Furthermore, the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and Sudan people Liberation Movement (SPLM), who govern the south, must allow free campaigning for supporters of both options and ” issue strong directives to party members not to interfere negatively in campaigns or events promoting dialogue on the future of Sudan”.

The referendum is a key provision of the 2005 peace deal that ended the south’s 22-year civil war with the north, during which about two million people were killed in a conflict fuelled by religion, ethnicity, ideology and natural resources, including oil. It is widely expected that Southerners will vote to create their own state that is separate from the North.

The timetable issued by the commission this month, voters will now be registered between November 14 and December 1 and the final list of voters will be published on January 4, five days before the start of voting. However later it was announced that the registration will start one day later on November 15.

Carter Center expressed doubts over how the voter eligibility of Southerners will be determined by the commission.

“The Southern Sudan Referendum Act establishes three categories of eligible voters, but does not state what evidence voters must present to prove eligibility. The first category is voters who are members of indigenous communities and whose families were residing in Southern Sudan on or before 1956. This group is eligible to register and vote in either Northern or Southern Sudan, and in the eight countries where out-of-country voting is being conducted. The second is voters who trace their ancestry to a Southern Sudanese ethnic community but whose families were not residing in Southern Sudan in 1956. The third is residents of Southern Sudan since 1956. Individuals in the second and third categories are eligible to vote in Southern Sudan, but not in Northern Sudan nor in the eight countries where out-of-country voting is being conducted”.

“The Referendum Act provides little guidance on how voters are expected to prove their eligibility at a referendum center. No official list of ethnic or indigenous communities of Southern Sudan has been issued, nor has any indication been provided of how voters are to prove that their ancestry can be traced to an ethnic community of Southern Sudan, or how to distinguish between an ethnic and indigenous community. It is also unclear how voters will be able to establish that their family resided in Southern Sudan before 1956 or that their family has permanently resided in Southern Sudan since 1956”.

The Carter Center stressed that Sudan’s leaders must ensure that the rights of southerners in the north and northerners in the south are safeguarded.

“As Sudanese citizens, irrespective of the outcome of the referendum, they deserve the protection of the state, assurances of their citizenship, and unequivocal commitments that they will not be expelled in the wake of the referendum.

“A lack of adequate accurate information in the public sphere could result in the spread of rumors and misinformation, creating anxiety or even endangering the process,” it said.

NCP officials have warned that a large number of Southerners living in the North will lose their citizenship rights should the referendum result in a new state.

(ST)