The Importance Of Referendum To The Sudan

For over two decades, the Sudan witnessed a bloody period of worst civil war in Africa that claimed over two million lives and displaced millions of people causing regional instability and the desire for peace.

The war, fought between the Northern Muslim Arabs and the Southern Christian blacks, drew the world’s attention and prompted the International community to intervene in order to bring about a lasting peace. The Sudan referendum is therefore a mechanism for achieving that desired peace.

After a long period of peace negotiations between the Khartoum based ruling National Congress Party, representing the Government of Sudan (GoS), and the Southern rebel Sudanese Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM), a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), brokered by IGAD Member States, the African Union, the European Union, the United States of America and the Arab League, was signed in 2005 in Kenya. It granted Southern Sudan a semi autonomous government which would function along side Sudan’s Government of National Unity (GoNU). The referendum is expected to resolve the semi-autonomous status of the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) and help in addressing the long standing conflicts between the North and the South.

However, the CPA, which provided for a number of actions that the two former fighting forces committed to carry out over a period of six years, hoped to achieve a sustainable peace process. While the unity of the people of Sudan was agreed upon based on the free will of the people exercised through democratic governance, accountability, equality, respect and justice for all, the right to self- determination for the people of Southern Sudan was also recognized. This was to be realized through an internationally monitored referendum, now scheduled for January 2011. The referendum will determine the future of Southern Sudan.

Essentially, the referendum would help to confirm the unity of the Sudan by voting to adopt the system of government established under the CPA, or to vote for separation. To the Sudan, the referendum is important in many ways: It will give the people of Southern Sudan a free choice to decide their own political status and how they will be governed without external compulsion. The referendum will provide the most practical means and democratic opportunity for the people of Sudan to resolve many outstanding issues pertaining to Governance, Wealth Sharing, Boundaries Demarcation, and Popular Consultation over the people of Nuba Mountains and the Southern Blue Nile States.

The long war in Sudan did not allow many regions of the country to develop. With the holding of the referendum, the country would be set on a process that will guarantee peace and stability that will allow development work to take place. This would benefit the local population as well as relieve the neighboring countries which have always experienced refugee pressure occasioned by conflicts in Sudan. Thus the peace will create regional socioeconomic and political stability.