[Montréal, Québec, Canada -4°C] It’s refreshing to see a major international media network devoting and entire show about the present situation in Sudan four months before the country holds its first multi-party general elections in 24 years.
Al Jazeera’s Inside Story asks if Sudan’s elections can take place on time without a reform to the electoral laws. In this episode, aired yesterday, (Tuesday Dec. 8, 2009) included a discussion with:
- Abdelwahab El-Affendi Senior Research Fellow at the University of Westminster Centre for the Study of Democracy who was in London England;
- Rabie Abdul Atti, Advisor to Sudan’s Ministry of Information who was in Khartoum, Sudan; and
- Ali Al Haj Mohamed, the Deputy Secretary General of Sudan’s Popular Congress Party who was in Bonn, Germany.
A state of mistrust between the partners for peace currently ruling Sudan has put the old North/South rivals back on a collison course. Three senior leaders of the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) were briefly held on Monday in a police crackdown against opposition protests which demanded changes to the country’s electoral law.
Salva Kiir, the president of South Sudan, condemned the arrests, saying they broke the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 that ended a devastating 22-year civil war between North and South. Police had announced that the electoral reform demonstrations would be considered illegal. However, several hundred opposition protesters marched through the streets of Khartoum and Omdurman, waving placards and chanting: “We want our freedom.”
The SPLM and the ruling NCP of Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, have failed to agree on democratic reforms ahead of elections next April.
