Sudan: Speaker Appeals for Unity After Referendum

By Henry Neondo

Although the government of Sudan is prepared to accept the outcome of the referendum, expected to be held on the January 9, 2011, it is going to work towards achieving a unity outcome from the referendum. Ahmed Ibrahim El-Tahir, Sudan National Assembly Speaker said Thursday in Nairobi, Kenya.

El-Tahir said acceptance of the outcome of the referendum will however depend on whether the process was free, fair and transparent and consistent with the law, adding that that notwithstanding, the government is going to advocate for the unity of the country.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference of the Parliamentary Union of The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), El-Tahir said the Government of Sudan’s policy is to stick to the provisions of the 2005 Comprehensive Agreement (CPA).

 “The government of Sudan upholds the right of the people of the south to choose the way they wish to go, but we shall pursue the path we think is beneficial to not only to the Sudan but Africa as a whole”, he said.

Towards this end, he said, “the government of Sudan passed the referendum law and established a commission that would oversee the referendum”.

El-Tahir said that with 59 parties out of 65 that exist in the country, 8 of which are southern based and the fact that all the Southern Members of the Parliament in Khartoum support the unity cause, “a positive outcome of the CPA is possible”, he said.

But there are outstanding issues that have to be sorted out. El-Tahir said the demarcation of the boundary between the North and South and a compromise on the head to the commission that is to decide on which side Abyei, an important state  with oil resources.

Mahdy Ibrahim, the Chairman of the Sudan Naitonal Assembly Foreign Relations Committee hopes that the referendum will not make Sudan to be an example of the disintegration of a nation state.

He said he hopes the Sudanese are learning important lessons from elsewhere in the world where countries are coming together for some form of regional blocks/union. “They cannot afford to separate as the repercussions would be felt well beyond its borders”. Asked to clarify, Mahdy said every African country has diversity in peoples’ aspirations, races, religions etc and the “negative” CPA referendum would only encourage any simmering move to separate these countries.

The CPA, also known as the Naivasha Agreement, was a set of agreements culminating in January 2005 that were signed between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Government of Sudan. The Naivasha Agreement was meant to end the Second Sudanese Civil War, develop democratic governance countrywide and share oil revenues. It further set a timetable by which Southern Sudan would have a referendum on its independence.

The peace process was encouraged by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), as well as IGAD-Partners, a consortium of donor countries.