FOR over 20 years, the people of northern and southern Sudan fought a brutal conflict, losing some two million lives to the bloodshed, famine, drought and disease in the process. Exactly five years ago this month, the war, which the south wanted to exploit as a platform to secede, formally came to an end, with the signing of a political deal between the two sides.
While one key aspect of the so-called north-south peace accord was the setting up of a power-sharing government between the two main protagonists, namely the National Congress Party (NCP from the north) and the Sudan's Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM from the south), another major provision of the accord, better known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) is the holding of free, credible elections throughout Sudan, precisely one full year ahead of the most important stipulation of the 2005 peace deal; namely a plebiscite in the south to determine whether the mainly Christian and Animist region will remain as part and parcel of a united Sudan or choose total independence.
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So, half a decade before Sudan's civil war ended in a stalemate, the people of the north and the south are set to go to the polls to choose their leaders. The national elections are due this April, all things being equal; and when they take place, they will be the first presidential, legislative and regional elections in 24 years.
It is to be expected, the intense interest the impending polls has been generating across the world. Between now and the next fortnight, for instance, the tricky task of determining who will be chosen to stand for the two key Sudanese parties, north and south, should have been completed.
But, who will be in the race for the two presidents? That is where most interests will lie, principally, because one presidential contest will have to decide who will be the next president of all Sudan, northern and southern alike while the other will determine who occupies the post of president for the semi-autonomous south. Autonomy status for the south is yet another provision of the January 2005, north-south peace accord. While Omar Hassan Al Bashir is the country's president, and has been on that job since launching a coup that overthrew the democratically-elected administration of Prime Minister Sadik Ah Mahdi in 1989, the man who is currently the beneficiary of the granting of autonomy status to the south is Mr. Salva Kiar Mayadeed, who doubles as Sudan's first vice president and the president of the semi-autonomous region of South Sudan. He is also the leader, as well as a co-founder, of the SPLM.
In the race for President of Sudan, a logical conclusion to reach is that the contest will be a straight fight between the NCP, which is the senior partner in the government of national unity, and the SPLM, the junior partner. In actual fact, however, the race isn't necessarily as straightforward as that.
For instance, it is already, common knowledge that President Omar Al Bashir, one of the chief protagonists of the military coup of 20 years ago, will be the candidate of the governing NCP in alliance with several other parties. By Saturday, January 16, many of the major political parties lined up against him, hoping to oust him from power, had not revealed their intentions.
In recent weeks, a lot of media attention has been directed towards the Juba Conference. It is a loose political alliance that was convened several months with the overriding aim of thwarting President Bashir's (suspected) attempted to cling to power by all means. At a time the members of the Juba Conference threatened to organize a boycott of the forthcoming elections. Later on, they announced they were also considering the option of fielding a joint candidate. Amid the long and eager wait, most observers are of the view that the alliance will finally come together behind a single politician as their flag-bearer.
Where does that leave the SPLM? They are former separatist rebels who control the south of the country. The announcement of their presidential candidate was long-overdue. Until recently, many had concluded that, as the NCP and its allies have been quick to choose President Bashir as their candidate, the SPLM would emerge with Mr. Salva Kir in no time. But no, the vice president of the Sudan excluded himself from being considered, because he wanted to remain as the president of South Sudan, a job he has held since July 2005, following the sudden death of his senior colleague, co-founder of the SPLM and signatory of the CPA, Dr. John Garang, in a mysterious helicopter crash in the mountains of Uganda.
The United Nations (UN) is, in many ways, a big stakeholder in t he ongoing process in Africa's largest country. The UN has, in total, a force of over to10, 000 military and civilian personnel in Sudan, most of them stationed in the troubled south, mainly, to monitor an otherwise fragile peace deal. This contingent of UN personnel is separate from the several thousand troops and police that where deployed in the crisis-ridden region of Darfur, in the west, where the UN says some 300, 000 civilians have died and about 2.5 million others displaced since February 2003, w hen the province's black African tribes, who are in the majority in the area, took up arms against the central government in Khartoum, accusing the predominantly Arab regime of decades of neglect and oppression.
As for the presence of UN personnel is south Sudan, the CPA provided for it, to among other duties, supervise the many aspects for the peace accords, one of which is April's elections.
According to the UN, the polls will be one of the most complicated ever. There will be six elections altogether. They include the contest for national president, the two chambers of the National Assembly, the president of the south and the southern legislature.
In all their lives, most people in Sudan have never voted before, because it has been so long since the last elections were held; over a quarter of a century now.
But, for many ordinary Sudanese, and in particular, the people of the southern region, the biggest event in the next twelve months is after Aprils national elections. As has already been noted, January 2011 will be the moment when the electorate in the oil rich south will file out onto the streets and into the polling-stations to vote for possible independence from the rest of Sudan, under the terms of the comprehensive peace deal.
Indeed, the nomination process all across Sudan commenced on Tuesday, January 12, and takes no more than ten days to complete. By the time the process has been sorted out, all those hopeful of taking a seat of power would have been known, as the respective political parties are being urged to put forward the names to the national election committee of who they have chosen to stand.
However, the ongoing process in the ex-British colony comes against the backdrop of continuing violence, particularly in the south. Reports speak of repeated, heavy clashes between rival ethnic groups across the troubled region in recent weeks. There are reports of several deaths in renewed fighting in the Goggriol Region of the South Worrop state. It's a region where some 140 persons were reportedly killed just under a fortnight ago. There is widespread feeling of cynicism, if not skepticism, that elections will be free or fair, especially in areas, such as, the war torn Darfur region.
Yet, the authorities remain optimistic. They insist that they are doing everything possible to meet the challenge of organizing these elections. Should they eventually take place, as the authorities have predicted, those polls will have become the largest and most complex election Sudan will have ever seen.
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