The road to the referendum is getting rockier by the day, worries Asmaa El-Husseini There are four months to go before the elections in Sudan and 13 before the referendum on self- determination in the south, but much uncertainty surrounds these two crucial events. Many had assumed that the international community was going to step in to guarantee the fairness of the Sudanese general elections, due in April 2010. This now seems more and more unrealistic. As a result, few believe that the coming elections would bring about the much-awaited change. In all likelihood, the country is going to remain in the tight grip of Omar Al-Bashir and his anti-Western Salvation Front. Now the Sudanese public is divided on whether to participate in the upcoming elections or boycott them. Many argue that the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) is using the elections to create an alternative legitimacy, one with which Omar Al-Bashir may challenge the international community and the International Criminal Court. The opposition parties and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement are yet to declare their position regarding the elections. The Americans have already voiced their concern. US officials say they are alarmed over the slow progress in the registration of voters and dismayed by the continued quarrels between the two government partners, the NCP and the SPLM. A State Department statement says that unless these issues are resolved, the fairness of the elections and the referendum would come into question. It warns that Sudan's political parties have yet to demonstrate the necessary political will to achieve a solution on sensitive and difficult matters. The statement was released following a visit by US Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration. It was his first trip to the country since Washington announced its new policy on Sudan last October, maintaining the sanctions but offering the Sudanese government incentives for democratisation. In a related development, the Washington-based Enough Project released a report saying that there are fears of renewed civil war in Sudan, warning that the general elections of 2010 and the referendum of 2011 may not be free. According to the report, the NCP and its leader Omar Al-Bashir bear much of the blame for the sorry state of affairs in the country. The Enough Project report was authored by John Prendergast, a former employee of the US State Department and the National Security Council. Last March, the ICC accused Al-Bashir of involvement in war crimes in Darfur. The Americans, Prendergast said, need to coordinate their action with China, a country that has invested heavily in Sudanese oil and that may face considerable losses in the event of civil war. China's oil investment would be endangered in the event of an all-out war in south Sudan. The US must exert diplomatic efforts to initiate negotiations leading to peace in Sudan, the report stated. The Enough Project report called for a freeze on the assets of major NCP members who accumulated their wealth during the oil boom of the last decade. The authors of the report urged a ban on travel to Sudan and asked the administration to turn down Khartoum's request for debt relief. Abdel-Mahmoud Abdel-Halim, Sudan's UN envoy, challenged the Enough Project's credibility. The authors of the report, he said, are warmongers wishing to subvert peace that is already on track. He described the authors of the report as "bankrupt" and "sick-minded". The Sudanese Foreign Ministry said that any questioning of the election process is an act of sabotage done to serve a secret agenda. There is no difference now among the partners of the government on the question of borders, the ministry stated, nor is there any impediment to elections. According to the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, the first steps of the election campaign began with the voluntary registration of voters. The number of registered voters so far is quite encouraging at 10 million, the ministry noted. A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry described the drawing of borders between north and south Sudan as a long-term technical process. He added that technical committees entrusted with the mapping were doing their work in a systematic manner. The Foreign Ministry called on the international community to stop listening to those who question the elections and instead support the process of democratisation in the country. However, the Save Darfur Coalition, an alliance of over 180 religious, political, and human rights groups, has endorsed the views of the Enough Project. According to Save Darfur, well-coordinated and multilateral action is necessary to consolidate peace in Sudan at a time when the NCP is trying to remain in control of wealth and power. Even in Sudan, doubts about the future abound. The SPLM has accused the NCP of procrastination on the question of democratisation. Umma Party leader Al-Sadeq Al-Mahdi said that forged elections results, or suspicions of fraud such as those that surfaced in Kenya and Zimbabwe, could ruin Sudan. Armed groups in Darfur want to postpone elections until a peace agreement is reached. They fear that if elections are held before a peace deal is made, their headquarters would be attacked. Still, the SPLM and a number of the northern opposition parties said that they have yet to make up their mind about the elections. Earlier they had promised to announce their stand on the elections by the end of November. The main reason for their postponement of a decision on a possible boycott was their desire to see the impact of the extra week the government has allowed for the registration of votes. Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor has admitted that relations between the SPLM and the NCP are tense. Unless agreement is reached over certain laws, a conflict would be inevitable. But the NCP cannot continue to escalate the situation indefinitely, he added. The NCP is hoping to survive through political chaos, but this is going to be hard with so many political forces on the scene, Alor stated. For the elections to bring the country to safe shores, Sudanese politicians will have to find a way of ending the violence in the south, sorting out Darfur, and finding common ground for future policy. Should this happen, a devastating crisis may be narrowly avoided.
