From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Thu Sep 10 2009 - 07:01:03 EDT
Sudan opposition parties forge alliance
A new deal between former southern rebels who hope to secede in 2011 and a
northern opposition group could threaten President Omar al-Bashir's grip on
power if fair elections are held next year.
By
<http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/encryptmail.pl?ID=D3E3EFF4F4A0C2E1ECE4E1F5
E6&url=/2009/0909/p06s09-woaf.html> Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The
Christian Science Monitor
from the September 10, 2009 edition
Johannesburg, South Africa - Sudan's crucial presidential and parliamentary
elections - a possible milestone for peace in a country rattled by two
decades of civil war - appear to be well underway.
This week, a former southern rebel group that now shares power in Khartoum
with its northern rivals signed a memorandum of understanding to form an
electoral alliance with a northern opposition group, bringing the
strongest-yet challenge to the rule of President Omar al-Bashir.
The very fact that the southern rebels, the Sudanese People's Liberation
Movement, have a campaign strategy for the 2010 elections is a hopeful sign,
since the SPLM is thought to be preparing itself for a referendum in 2011
that could give southern Sudan its independence. But in the meantime, SPLM
leaders are willing to fight for power in a unified Sudan, this time with
votes rather than with weapons of war.
"There are a number of hopeful signs for this election," says Abdul Rahim
Ali Mohammad Ibrahim, a political analyst who has close ties to Mr. Bashir's
National Congress Party (NCP). "The leaders of the SPLM are saying openly
that they want to stay in a united Sudan, although a number of people in
their party do not feel the same way."
Like many observers, Mr. Ibrahim says the SPLM's alliance with the
northern-based Umma Party of former Sudanese Prime Minster Sadiq al-Mahdi
should be seen more as a symbolic gesture of mutual support against a common
political enemy.
"This agreement is more in the interest of the Umma Party than it is for the
SPLM," says Ibrahim. "I think it says something not very material or
substantial, and somewhat harmless. Sadiq al-Mahdi was in Juba, and he
wanted to make a gesture to the SPLM."
A key step for peace
Sudan's general elections, scheduled for April 2010, are a potentially
crucial step for peace in the war-torn North African country, since they
would give Sudanese voters from north and south and even the strife-torn
Darfur region their first chance to elect their leaders in a decade. At war
for nearly two decades - most recently in the ongoing conflict in the
western region of Darfur - Sudan has been ruled by an active-duty general,
Bashir, who led a coup that overthrew an elected government in 1989.
If they go well, and are perceived to be fair, elections could be Sudan's
best chance of remaining a united and peaceful country.
"The SPLM is attempting to create a coalition that is a political
counterweight to the NCP's domination of the current system," says John
Prendergast, an Africa expert at the Enough Project, a human rights group
that focuses on the prevention of genocide. The NCP has strong advantages
over opposition parties, Mr. Prendergast says, and its past use of bribery
and armed militias to undermine its enemies could be the main motivation for
the SPLM to use all methods, including peaceful political ones, to make
friends and influence people.
With this alliance, he adds, "The NCP will have to rig the elections fairly
profoundly in order to win next year's vote."
The South will rise again?
Explaining the alliance to a reporter from Voice of America, Mr. Mahdi said
the Umma Party was prepared to accept the possibility of South Sudan's
secession from Khartoum, and sees this agreement as a chance to maintain
peaceful relations throughout.
"We think its time to begin to discuss the possibilities of separation and
an independent South, so that we are prepared for the eventuality," said
Mahdi. A pragmatic and moderate former prime minister of Sudan, Mahdi was
overthrown by Bashir at a time of intense negotiations with the rebellious
leadership of southern Sudan in 1989.
The SPLM's participation in the 2010 elections is by no means guaranteed,
and its relations with Bashir's party have been rocky. In October 2007, the
SPLM temporarily suspended its participation in the so-called Unity
Government with Bashir's NCP, because of what it regarded as broken
promises. Disagreements over boundary lines between northern and southern
controlled states - lines that cut across some of Sudan's most productive
oil fields - and distrust over the sharing of the government's oil revenues
have at times led to sporadic bouts of fighting between soldiers loyal to
Khartoum and those loyal to the southern capital of Juba.
This is not the SPLM's first foray into political alliances. During the
1990s, when the SPLM was still at war with the Bashir government in
Khartoum, the SPLM's leader John Garang forged a National Democratic
Alliance with several northern parties, and maintained these ties leading up
to the eventual peace treaty that ended the civil war in January 2005. But
Murtada al-Ghali, editor of the Khartoum-based newspaper Al Ajras al-Huriya,
says that the agreement between SPLM and the Umma Party is "significant."
"An alliance with Umma Party is very significant, as SPLM moves to
elections," says Mr. Ghali. "These elections have real importance to the
SPLM and NCP, because there are a lot of issues still to be dealt with, and
a lack of trust between the two sides."
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