Sudanese Referendum Registration Progresses In Australia

Over 360,000 South Sudanese in the Diaspora are expected to register for next month’s Southern Sudan referendum, sources privy to the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission  At the same time, the referendum registration process in Australia is progressing slowly but steadily as indicated by preliminary statistics from the five registration centers in the country.

The overall projection of the Diaspora voters in eight countries by the SSRC currently stands at an approximate 364,000 individuals.

The bulk of these voters are in the four neighboring African countries of Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Egypt while the remainder comes from Canada, the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Australia.

Provisional statistics obtained by Gurtong and which were confirmed by the SSRC representative in Australia David Gatwech indicated that 7,213 voters have so far registered in Australia.

At the main centre in the federal capital Canberra 200 voters have registered out of the expected over 300 while in Melbourne, the main sub-centre and leading in voter numbers 3, 400 have so far registered out of the expected more than 4,500.

In Sydney 1,600 voters have so far registered and the expected total number of voters stands at over 2, 500 while 1,300 eligible voters have so far registered in Brisbane out of the expected over 2, 000.

In Perth 713 voters have registered so far out of the expected 1, 500.

About 10,800 eligible voters in Australia are expected to register in the five centres by the end of the exercise on December 8.

South Sudanese in Adelaide and Tasmania will register in Melbourne, a situation that is expected to raise the figures given the extension of the registration deadline by the SSRC.