Friday, May 07, 2010

And the next step: referendum

Now that the elections are over and the winners declared, there is nothing much to look forward to other than the referendum slated for January 2011. It does not matter whether your candidate won in the elctions or you do not accept the results: that is up to the courts if you want to contest.

What our people should be focusing on these coming months should be the referendum. President Bashir had already planned for a massive campaign to conviince Southern Sudanese to vote for unity. What we need to see is how he planned to accomplish that in seven months that he failed to do in five years.

There are many grudges in Southern Sudan. The CPA is being implemented in bits and at a pace only conveneint to the NCP. Feet dragging is the norm. Despite Bashir's pledge to hold the referendum on time, his statements contradict the issues on the ground.

When the NCP raised the slogan of "Making Unity Attractive", they thought it will be easy to "buy" off the Southerners like they did in 1947. Hard luck. The SPLM should start their own campaign for a separate country.

Southerners are going to vote for a separate nation. Period.

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