A woman casts her vote at a polling station in Jebel Aulia                                                     Photo courtesy

As the people of Sudan go to the polls for the first time since 1986, a lot of local, regional, and extra-continental interest is at stake which might explain the heat the elections have generated. 

In the process that begins on Sunday, Sudan people vote for their state governors, national legislators, and most important the control of the Government of Southern Sudan within which are to be found at least ten states. 

It is President Omar al-Bashir who, in 1997, decided to restructure the country by abolishing the existing five regions, create at least 25 states, and then imposed Sharia law across the country. Resistance to his rule, particularly in the south intensified an ongoing civil war that attracted the attention of regional neighbours and extra-continental forces. The election is thus a result of pressure from such forces. 

There are many interests from outsiders. To start with, Sudan has been a source of regional concerns because its internal conflicts tend to spread to such neighbours as Kenya who worry about the proliferation of small arms as well as shouldering refugees. Lack of stability in Sudan, therefore, is a concern for Kenya. 

In addition, President Bashir is under indictment by the International Criminal Court, ICC, for crimes committed in Darfur. The ICC, as British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook asserted, “is not a court set up to bring to book prime ministers of the United Kingdom or presidents of the United States.” It therefore ignores perpetrators of international atrocities in powerful countries and appears to target Africans. This gives credence to claims that the ICC is a new international political instrument for harassing African leaders and the President Bashir's indictment and possible defeat would thus send a strong message to African leaders. 

Undermining critics 

Within Sudan, there are mainly two forces to consider, that of President al-Bashir in the north and that of Salva Kiir in the south. First, the election is a matter of legitimisation for President al-Bashir who came to power through a coup in 1989.

A mandate from the people of Sudan, even if they are mainly from the north, will undermine his critics because he will have the rubber stamp of democracy. Second, the election is both a matter of legitimisation for SPLM in the eyes of the people of Southern Sudan. Having come to power as a liberation movement, SPLM needs the popular approval which an election can give. 

The largest country in Africa with almost one million square miles of land and a small population of roughly 41 million people, Sudan is divided along racial, ethnic, and religious lines. It is a country where the idea of state is in conflict with the idea of nation. A cultural mix of historical and religious interactions of Africans and Arabs, its peoples appear to be confused as to whether Sudan is an African or an Arab country. 

Various conquests made the Africans victims of multiple-colonialism. This started in the 16th Century when Arab conquerors imposed Islamic Sultanates and raided Africans for the “black ivory”, meaning slaves. Slave trade continued even after Arab rulers were subdued by Mohammed Ali, the Turkish ruler of Egypt, 1821. Africans were thus put under Arab rulers who were under Egyptian rulers who were under Turkish rulers. When the British replaced the Turks as rulers of Egypt and Sudan, the Africans were under the Arabs who were under the Egyptians who were under the British. 

Independence, in 1956, had different meanings for Arabs and for Africans. Africans were disappointed because independence had simply removed British and Egyptian rule while leaving Arab “colonialism” intact. They, particularly in the South then challenged the legitimacy of the state and took up arms to demand rights they believed were denied by their Arab rulers. From the start, therefore, Sudan became a place of continuing warfare as Arab rulers tried to assert authority in creating an Islamic state. 

In the process, Sudan deteriorated into a state in perpetual war with its various peoples, although there were many attempts at peace making. Gaafar el Numeiri reached a short-lived settlement in 1972 but the settlement quickly broke down amidst accusations of bad faith. The new wave of warfare was symbolised by the rise of the Sudanese Liberation Movement, SPLM, and its military wing SPLA based in the South. In response, the government encouraged Arab militias initially to counter the advances of the Sudanese Liberation Army, SPLA. The fighting also affected Sudan’s neighbours. 

Peace agreement 

This ability to transnationalise Sudan’s war is one of the reasons that drove Intergovernmental Authority on Development, IGAD, to facilitate the peace process between the government of Sudan and the SPLA. Both sides wanted a way out of their predicament and therefore found IGAD very useful. 

The peace process produced the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, CPA, signed in Nairobi in 2005 as a long term way out of the prolonged conflict. This called for a constitutional restructuring by instituting power sharing at the national level while giving autonomy to the south to organise a government that is virtually independent. It also called for elections and a referendum on the possibility of the south seceding from the state of Sudan. 

This anticipated election and subsequent referendum, therefore, is the basis of internal, regional, and extra-continental interests that appears to be ethnic, religious, and geopolitical because the outcome will mean different things to different groups. For President Bashir and his team, the election is a legitimisation of his rule at least in the North where he has support and given the population distribution, he is likely to win. 

There is no credible challenge to him at that level, not even from former Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi’s UMMA Party who has now withdrawn from elections. The decision by the SPLM candidate, Yassir Arman, to withdraw therefore was more tactical rather than substantive. This is despite the claim by former US President Jimmy Carter that President Bashir might lose which is probably a reflection of Western wishful thinking. 

The same cannot be said in the region of Darfur and the south. In Darfur, atrocities for which President Bashir was indicted abound. The 2008 census was manipulated and a lot of people were deliberately not counted. The announced results in the area of Darfur, therefore, are not likely to be credible. 

The South is different. It is an issue of final decolonisation that seemingly aborted in 1956. The likely winner is SPLM and its leader, Salva Kiir Mayardit, the liberators from Arab colonialism. Like President Bashir in the North, the election is a legitimisation exercise for the SPLM to run the affairs of Southern Sudan with popular backing with the objective of preparing for the coming referendum. A decisive victory for Kiir, therefore, will be a mandate to take the South out of Sudan in the anticipated January 2011 referendum and thereby create a new country as a final act of decolonisation. 

Challenge 

The challenge before Kiir is not one of winning, that is a given and the question is by what margin, it is on how well prepared Southern Sudan is to become an independent state. It is here that Southern Sudan will need a lot of assistance in terms of institution building, personnel, and most important the development of a guiding ideology that will enable the citizens to identify with the new state. At present, there does not appear to be any which means that people of Southern Sudan can fall into the trap of ideological wanderings and become prey to foreign control. 

Countries of the East African Community are interested in the likely referendum outcome. Culturally and religiously, peoples of Southern Sudan have more in common with their neighbours in the South than with their rulers in the North. The same peoples cut across borders and profess to belong to various Christian denominations. In terms of economic activities, it is easier to transport goods through Mombasa or the anticipated port at Lamu than going through Port Said on the Red Sea. 

There are, however, a few points of friction that might need to be sorted out between Kenya and the Government of Southern Sudan. These include cross-border movements of small arms, the problem of refugees, and open trade between the two countries. There is also the issue of the Elemi Triangle that will need to be settled in an amicable way.  

By Macharia Munene.

Macharia Munene  [email protected] is a Professor of History and International Relations, United States International University, Nairobi. 

Courtesy: Africa Review