As the political process in Sudan appears to be staggering and the parties struggle to head off a crisis, there should be one single over-arching concern on the minds of everyone concerned: This country must not sink back again into violence.
The decision by the leading challenger to President Omar Bashir to withdraw from the presidential election in just ten days time threatens to plunge the country into chaos. If Yassir Arman of the southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) sticks with this decision, then the imminent presidential, gubernatorial and national elections will be rendered meaningless.
The claim is that Bashir’s National Congress Party is already busy rigging the results of the elections. Furthermore opposition parties protest they are being denied fair access to the media to promote their own campaigns, while the government and its allies are receiving disproportionate airtime. Outside observers have already indicated that Sudan’s first multiparty elections in quarter of a century seem to have some irregularities, and that is before a single vote has been cast.
However, for opposition parties to repeat their 2000 boycott of the polls is a dangerous tactic. The SPLM then under the charismatic leadership of the late John Garang went on to secure a deal with Bashir that brought them into a power-sharing government, which despite many difficulties, has just about functioned.
Times, however, have changed. A second boycott is unlikely to force Bashir to further concessions. Indeed, he has threatened that the January 2011 referendum on autonomy for Southern Sudan, part of the peace deal that brought the SPLM into government, will be cancelled if there is an electoral boycott. Having embraced the political process, the SPLM cannot walk away whenever they think they have a problem. If there is electoral fraud, then they should note and register it and let it be dealt with by the election authorities. If that process is not satisfactory, then is the time perhaps to consider a boycott of Parliament and legal challenges. Having fought so hard for representation within Sudan, the SPLM should not be abandoning their achievements.
For his part, President Bashir, having played such a major part in the groundbreaking peace deal of 2005, seems to have abandoned his proven statecraft. Even at this late juncture, he could offer compromises on the conduct and monitoring of the polls or even postpone them to introduce such measures.
What he should not do is press ahead with an election in which a key player is not participating. His win would be a hollow one and would almost certainly move political rivalries from the corridors of power, back out onto the streets. The most likely outcome would be a return to violence. The whole awful north-south conflict, which has already claimed 1.5 million lives, would start again. And in the end a new peace deal would have to be brokered and new accommodations and compromises made. Why not miss out all the bloodshed and cut a new deal right now?
Arab News
