Almost ninety nine percent of southern Sudanese voted for separation
30 January, 2011
Khartoum, Sudan (Sudanow)- Southerners have overwhelmingly voted for secession according to the initial results of the vote counts in the ten southern states as announced by the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission on Saturday, pending the final results announcement in February.
Almost a hundred percent of Southern Sudanese who cast their votes in the southern states have voted for secession, according to the Deputy Chair of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission, SSRC Chan Rec, leaving history say whether this is a happy ending of a legacy that would bear on the consciousness of both northerners and southerners, the former blamed for letting a chance to maintain the unity of the country and the former for failing to deliver the dividends of independence when they the elite faces the burden of securing food and care for millions in a land barren of any infrastructures
.
The results means the number 54 African state is now born but will it add to the successful or the failed line of states in the continent.
The Commissioner, Dr Ibrahim Khalil, and his staff flew to Juba, the main town in southern Sudan to attend the ceremony in which the results concerning southern Sudan would be officially announced. He stood beside Rec when the southern Sudan results were announced. He said southerners in southern who voted in the southern regions proper, have cast 99.57% of their ballots in favour of separation from the north.
The commission will then fly to the north and hold a press conference in less than a week to announce the rest of the results coming out of northern Sudan as well as those coming from outside the country, in some eight locations.
“These primary results give indications as to a constitutional relationship of two independent southern and northern Sudan, in light of the outcome of the results that point to separation” the commissioner, using legal jargon to say the outcome so far was separation, was quoted by the official Sudan News Agency which was reporting from Juba as saying on Sunday
.
The referendum is in implementation of the stipulation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the accord that put an end to 22 years of civil war in the Sudan. The southerners would decide according to the CPA either chose unity or separation. President Bashir, has vowed in an address on the occasion of the country’s independence day that he would respect the outcome of the referendum no matter what the outcome.
The First Vice President and President of the Government of Southern Sudan, General Salva Kiir Mayardit, has described his current boss, Bashir as “ hero of peace” in a ceremony broadcast alive from Juba on Sunday following the announcement of the results of the vote in southern Sudan.
Initial results announced by the website of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission show that 1.17% of Southern Sudanese in and outside the country voted for unity that is ( 44,888 votes) against 98.83% voting for secession that is ( 3,792,518 votes). The votes cast were (3,851,994), the valid votes are (3,837,406), the blank votes (6,222) and the invalid votes were (8,366
).
The CPA has given southerners about one-third of constitutional, legislative and executive posts in the Federal government as well as going alone with running the southern government in the 10 southern states. The move was sought to make unity attractive by the token of the CPA. However southern Sudanese seem unsatisfied with the arrangement.
Kiir was quoted as saying that the “feeling of injustice” was behind the landslide vote for secession. However he called on southerners to observe good relations with neighbouring countries and “with the northern Sudan in particular.”
Although the official and final results would be announced in February, the two sides would remain hooked to each other until the end of July 2011, the date set for the expiry of the comprehensive peace agreement in case southerners chose to go away and separate from the north.
This would mean new state will have to fly the federal flag until then and it would continue to be named southern Sudan. But southerners have already engaged in finding a new name for the state, with most observers saying they new name would be “Southern Sudan Republic” going in line with the trend as in south and north Korea, south and north Yemen and East and West Germany.
Nevertheless the two sides have yet to settle a number of thorny issues, including the dual nationality, the border demarcation, the foreign debts, water shares and currency among other things.
The trend is that there would be no dual nationality albeit the fact that citizens from any side would enjoy the full privilege of investors and aliens.
There is also a tendency to adopt the concept of “soft borders” that is allowing civilians living in the border areas, inherited from the British-Egyptian condominium rule in 1956, would move in and out and exchange trade and interest with as little restrictions as possible. Herders and nomades would be allowed to go deep into southern Sudan from the north
.
The two sides will also have to work together to convince the world lenders into writing off the debts, letting go the debt services, as neither the north which will be stripped off the 80% of oil revenues would be able to repay the debts nor the south which has the highest rate of illiteracy in the region and the lowest income per capita in Sudan, therefore in the world, be able to pay the debts or the debts services.
But the thorniest question will remain that of Abyei, an oil rich triangle which each side insists belongs to it. Along with it each of the north and the south will have to ponder as to what it would do with the legacy of separation. Future generations will be wondering how northern Sudanese have failed to make enough concessions to maintain the unity of the country. While southerners would be asking how after struggling for independence they could not enjoy its dividends and may be bit their index as to why they opted for separation in the first place.
But according to local observers, without an intensive western assistance and a backing from the north, that would likely be the picture in a few years.
End
MO
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