Khartoum, April 27: A day after controversial polls returned President Omar al-Beshir to power, Sudan Tuesday turned its attention to its next challenge — forging unity in Africa’s largest country before it implodes.
Beshir, who was declared winner on Monday after the country’s first multi-party general elections since 1986, wasted no time in sketching out his plans for the months to come.
“Our next battle will be the unity of Sudan,” Beshir told supporters of his National Congress Party at a celebratory rally in Khartoum late on Monday.
In a solemn address on television earlier, he had vowed that a promised referendum on the independence of south Sudan would go ahead as planned on January 2011.
A peace deal signed in 2005 between the southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and the government of Khartoum to end civil war, provided for the competitive polls and for the southern referendum on independence.
Now that elections are over, southern Sudanese will begin to focus efforts on their main goal, the referendum.
Despite winning 68 percent of the votes overall, Beshir garnered support from only 10 percent of south Sudan voters.
Instead southerners voted overwhelmingly for Yasser Arman, the SPLM presidential candidate, whose name appeared on ballot papers despite the fact he withdrew from the race ahead of polling day.
“Beshir and his team will have to work hard to convince the southerners to choose unity. He could offer the south more autonomy if he wants to avoid the country’s split,” Sudanese political analyst Haydar Ibrahim said.
A national referendum commission has been promised to oversee the vote. Registration for voters in south Sudan and for southerners living in the north will take place in the coming months, during which time the north and the south will have to resolve all outstanding border demarcations.
European and American observers said the elections had failed to reach international standards.
Nonetheless foreign governments said they were willing to work with Sudan.
“Even if we acknowledge the problems with the election, the priority remains to maintain relations in order to assure a good referendum,” a western diplomat said.
—Agencies