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Reflections on the General Elections in Sudan

April 20, 2010

Since 1989, Sudan has been under the dictatorship of General and later President Omar Bashir. For 24 years, Sudanese never saw the light of democracy. The General Elections in Sudan were slated for April 11-13 and this was extended by two days to April 15 after there was much hue and cry especially in South Sudan where the elections were poorly organised and many voters disenfranchised.

Since 1989, Sudan has been under the dictatorship of General and later President Omar Bashir. For 24 years, Sudanese never saw the light of democracy. The General Elections in Sudan were slated for April 11-13 and this was extended by two days to April 15 after there was much hue and cry especially in South Sudan where the elections were poorly organised and many voters disenfranchised.
The two dominant political parties in the elections are The National Congress Party (NCP) of President Omar Bashir and The Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) led by Salva Kiir. Mr. Kiir succeeded Vice President of Sudan, John Garang, who was killed in an air crash while returning from Uganda where he paid a visit to Yoweri Museveni. Garang got his new position as a result of the Transitional Government arrangement as agreed to under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005. Mr Kiir is currently the President of south Sudan, which has 10 provinces or states as compared to North Sudan which has 16 provinces. The elections came as part of the CPA, which came after the the ceasefire. It recommended an Interim Government and indeed a Government of National Unity and the sharing of power, self governance for south Sudan, a general Election and a referendum in January 2011.

There are 65 registered parties in Sudan and all the key parties have withdrawn one after the other, particularly from the presidential race. While some have focused on provincial elections, others have completely boycotted  the entire electoral process. Allegations have been made about the bias of the National Elections Commission (NEC), the contradiction between the Sudan census figures and the voter registration exercise. The deliberate reduction of the population of south Sudan, the issue of Darfur where over 50% percent of the prospective voters are either Internally Displaced Persons (Dips) or are refugees in other countries.

Other issues relate to lack of media coverage of opposition political parties from state owned TV and radio stations, deliberate manipulation of voters and the use of security agencies to police and collect voters’ slips from prospective voters and so on. The other point that needs to be made is that since the International Criminal Court is after Bashir, he needs desperately to remain in power and use that to shield himself at least for some time.

Although many of the presidential candidates withdrew from the election outside the stipulated time permitted by NEC or the Electoral Act, the action of the opposition in boycotting some or all the elctions is seen as a poltical move to undermine the credibility of the outcome of the elections and further put President Bashir in deeper mess.

The action of the Carter Centre to continually put pressure on the Sudanese Government, has also exposed the government by documenting several irregularities particularly in the voting exercise in south Sudan, where Salva Kiir is running against Dr. Lam Akor, Sudan’s former Foreign Minister and the Pro-North presidential leader of the SPLM-Democratic Change. Indeed, Mr. Kii’s predicament and frustration with the elections may have compelled Former President Jimmy  Carter’s outcry to the Sudan government on the shoddy way the elections held in South Sudan. 

There are two issues at play. Bashir desperately wishes to return to power as president but does not want Salva Kiir to return, hence his wish to frustrate the election in South Sudan. It is reasoned that a successful election in the South was a gateway to a successful Referendum for separation in January 2011. On the other hand, south Sudanese especially the Dinkas and Shilos are more interested in the elction of the president of South Sudan than the election of the President of Sudan. This is because they also know that as a requirement and fulfilment of the CPA, it is only through election that they can hold referendum in January 2011 regarding whether south Sudan wishes to break away or remain in Sudan. Hence, SPLM crucially needs the election for the purpose of creating a platform for transition into an independent nation-state.

Where does this leave the rest of the other political parties? And what are lessons learnt? There are so many splinter political parties in Sudan, and the country being the biggest in the entire continent of Africa is challenged because there are poor road networks and limited resources for political parties to carry out comprehensive political campaign. Indeed many of the parties either because of lack of resources or lack of candidates to field or both simply decided to engage in partial withdrawal or total boycott. But in some provinces and constituencies they decided to put up a good showing by challenging the government.

What may seem as a peaceful, and free and fair election in North Sudan is a product of the fact that Omar Bashir has no serious contender to the National Presidency. So what is the gain in rigging the elections?

Elections were conducted peacefully in North Sudan (including North Darfur, which did not experience the assault of the Janjaweed, as opposed to Western and Southern Darfur). However, elections in South Sudan were characterised by multiple problems. Less than 50% of ballot papers were delivered in the region. Polling officials were not paid a penny either before or during polling exercise, resulting in their refusal to announce election results and the basic infrastructure for elections such as physical structures, chairs and desks for electoral officials, were not available.

Indeed, names of voters ran anarchy on the voters list, some were written in Arabic and others in English. There was no comprehensive voters list written in either English or Arab. And knowing full well that South Sudan spoke English, this was certainly an orchestrated attempt to cause crisis. Many people could not find their names on the voter register. In fact, there was no thing as display of voter register for verification, prior to the elections. As a result, many names were either wrongly spelt, surnames became first names, or middle names became something else.

What may have occasioned this? There can be no justifiable explanation order than the fact that scuttling the elections in South Sudan or frustrating it was a step towards frustrating the proposed Referendum for self-government in South Sudan, slated for January 2011. However, this seems to have produced the opposite result because people of south Sudan are saying that the treatment meted out to them by Sudan’s NEC and President Bashir during the elections are the precise reasons why they should seek the option of separation. If any body was ever in doubt about what the outcome of the referendum was going to be, such doubting Thomases are now fully persuaded about the truth and reality of the future of South Sudan.

Many Darfurians were disenfranchised in their numbers. To be sure, the clamour is that elections in Darfur should be suspended, but why did Bashir insist that elections most hold in the entire Darfur Region, given the conflicts, both nomadic, tribal and poltical that have taken place and still continue as low intensity warfare in Western and Southern Darfur, in spite of some measure of peace achieved in the region as a result of the role of   UNMIS and the AU? At every point, political tension is raised between the leadership of the north and south. Whilst the Omar Bashir leadership is supporting certain groups and interests in south Sudan as a way of undermining the SPLM and frustrating the referendum, the effect or result is the opposite, namely that the people of south Sudan feel a stronger urge to take their political destiny in their hands.

Arabic is taught in the North of Sudan, and English in the South. This bifurcation follows the colonial lines of the British/Egyptian colonial legacy or Condominium. Sadly, there has been no attempt by the Sudanese political elite that inherited the post-colonial state in 1956 to redress and redesign this political topography. This situation has created feelings of social and political alienation and invariably the quest for self-determination and the subsequent liberation struggles waged under the  SPLM. Northern Sudanese were not encouraged to speak English, and a feeling of being Arab, superior and different from the “animist and Christian South” was created. These feelings of separateness run deep between Northern and Southern Sudanese.  In a word, politics is defined and designed on the basis of inclusion and exclusion, which is related to North versus South, Arab versus non Arab, “Muslims versus Christians and animists”

To be sure, Sudan has not provided the right example in citizenship in Africa, even though it is the first country to obtain independence from colonial rule in Africa. The other point is that the Sudan elections will continue to be disputed for a long time to come by political parties and political activists. However, the elections neither provide a good starting point for a country that has not witnessed democracy in 24 years, and that risks slipping back into authoritarian rule. There is one innovative and good side to the Sudan elections which other countries can emulate. They had a combination of the First Past The Post (FPTP) system and a Proportional Representation (PR) system. Under the PR system they had the Women List and the Party List. This encouraged a lot of women to turn out during polling.

Africa has no option than to go the way of elections and democracy. The future of Africa cannot be decided by a few any longer. It has to be decided by every citizen. As a result, there has to be a new template about inclusive and participatory politics.  It is for this reason that we must congratulate Sudanese for going to the polls. There is no such thing as a perfect election anywhere in the world.  At least, the path has been paved for other good tidings to come to all the people of Sudan. 

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