An intimidating panel gathered at London’s Frontline Club Tuesday night to discuss this very question in the context of Sudan’s first multi-party elections in 24 years scheduled for April 11, and what lies ahead for Sudan on the fifth anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. With a packed house and many journalists among the crowd, it was a conversation that could have gone well into the evening, but moderator Richard Cockett (Africa editor of the Economist) did his best to keep it to ninety minutes. The panelist line-up included the Most Rev. Daniel Deng, Archbishop of Sudan; Paul Molong Akaro, deputy head of mission for the government of Southern Sudan Liaison office to the UK; Osman Hummaida, human rights activist and executive director of the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies and Sara Pantuliano, programme leader, Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development. Each panelist spoke for several minutes about their personal thoughts for free and fair elections and the possibilities of return to war or for restoration and transformation, before the floor was opened to questions.

Not surprisingly, the focus stayed on the April elections, with firm agreement between the panelists (and audience) about the conditions on the ground in Sudan being in no way conducive to free and fair elections, thanks in principle to an oppressive security environment, a process tainted by government interference, restrictions on freedoms of speech and gross registration violations. Paul Molong got down to basics and pointed out that no voting system in the world is more complicated – he mentioned the sheer complexity of voting ballots alone – recent graduates in Khartoum were given ballots to fill out as a pseudo experiment. On average it took each student 22 minutes to complete. Imagine how long it would take voters in a remote village with a 90% female illiteracy rate, he said. This was quite the reality check, even for those reporters who had just returned from the region. This example was naturally one of many basic truths denied by the lone representative of the Sudanese embassy, who bravely took a second row seat. At one point he took the microphone to shamelessly defend the integrity of the much-maligned census, insist that political parties are free from government intimidation and interference and that the Sudanese people can freely express their opinions. By that I wondered if he meant express opinions before getting arrested, held without charge and beaten for them — like several top opposition leaders and journalists in Khartoum on December 7, who were rallying for change to laws which restrict basic political freedoms.

I wondered how the US Special Envoy to Sudan would respond to this crowd after declaring last Friday at a State Department press conference that he “believes the administration is working hard on processes that will allow credible elections to be held in April.” We all want to believe this is the case, but the evidence, less than 90 days out from the scheduled national election date of April 11, is just not there. As my colleague Robert Lawrence has already highlighted, ‘last minute changes to the national security and public order laws will be insufficient. The proper electoral environment and freedoms must be created at least 90 days prior to any election – and unfortunately we are now inside that 90 day window.’ In light of this, Paul Molong believes the United States and the international community should be looking beyond April 11, and prepare to mitigate post-electoral violence, engaging the high level international diplomacy, leadership and shared commitment which is totally absent from the process now. Yet another reality check for the audience.

If the international community is willing to stand on the sidelines and allow the NCP to conduct a fraudulent election so it can legitimize its genocidal rule, let’s hope its willing to help the millions of Sudanese who will be impacted by its consequences.

The opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Save Darfur Coalition.

Tags: ACJPS, Elections, Frontline Club, Government of Sudan, Journalism, London, NCP, Rev. Daniel Deng, Sudan

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Elections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.