Conspiracy of Silence; Between NEC and International Observers On Sudan Elections .

By: Dr. Peter Adwok Otto.

The Alliance of South Sudan Political Parties is quite perplexed by the behavior of the NEC and some international election Observers as EU, AU, Arab league, except for Carter center that had made a limited reference to the situation in the south regarding 2010 elections.

The officials of the NEC had properly abused their mandate by keeping silent in spite of daily complaints reaching them from the south on not only irregularities in polling, but very serious constitutional violations concerning the elections process in so many places committed by the SPLM/A like snatching of ballot boxes, burning of boxes, arrest of party’s representatives, shooting of voters and the list is long with the names of places, victims and the culprits.

What does the NEC want to achieve with this adamant defiant attitude of not listening to the cry of the southern people? There are places like Renk, Nasir,Torit etc. in which army soldiers flown in from Juba were driven from county to county voting for the SPLM from lists prepared by their officers, but not registered in respective areas, which renders the voters on the register in a particular area less than those who actually voted under no supervision of members of the local national election commission(NEC) who are usually chased away by the SPLA soldiers. One candidate for governorship of Lakes state had his campaign team members lashed 100 lashes each under his nose for reasons non other than contesting against SPLM.

Why did NEC bother people about elections if they could stand by SPLM, was it not better to declare SPLM winner by telling other parties not to contest?. This What Mr. Abel Alier wants to happen. How can elections be free and faire in such a manner? This NEC shall go down in history of Sudan as the worst national institution that consciously defied the constitution right from its refusal to strip SALVA Kiir from military uniform to exercising his powers during elections by appointing and dismissing ministers in lake states. How powerful is Abel Alier in the commission to stand by SALVA all the times violating the constitution? Where are the other members of the NEC?. If NEC believes that Kiir must come back by all means, it shall bear the consequences of elections after math with regard to southern people aspirations.

For those who believe that CPA will be implemented by fake members of parliament brought through election Freud, will not be good litmus paper to test the free opinion of the southern people, for all of them might opt to vote for unity for the fear of living under un speak able horrors of Kiir autocracy putting his tribe(in his state) in the first class and all others including Dinkas who promote human rights as second class citizens. SPLA rigging the votes are those benefiting from Kiir personally because mutiny in Mapel has nothing to do with elections, but due to delay of salaries. Kiir is impending committing a political blunder by pushing the SPLA army into politics which they don’t yet quite understand, when they come to realize later that they are working of interest of one person and not the nation, they will be ungovernable.

Some very prominent SPLA officers loved by their people had fallen out with people simply because they are with SALVA and his policies in the south are not gratifying an example is Lt. Gen. Oyay Deng Jajak who was welcomed by the people, the sooner they realized that his campaign was connected with SALVA, people regretted and shied away from his election trail. The international community on the other end was very sluggish and dubious pointing finger at the culprit in southern elections Freud, SPLA. EU representative was evicted from Yambio not to witness the serious irregularities and offenses committed by SPLA, unfortunately this incident was not included in their report.For whose interest is the observation of elections process done anyway? We had a lengthy debate with one of these international observers. I had to tell them that ‘many lives could have been saved in Ruanda in 1994 if the international community move in, in the right time. The only northern based NGO called SANAD that participated in elections supervision in southern states reveal several irregularities ranging from technical to harassment by southern constitutional post holders, executives and SPLA security personnel in the form of arrests of supervisors and voters, voting by minors and arrest of some members of SANAD NGO at KAKA in upper Nile state. The offences were more serious and dangerous in other places as Western Bahar Elghazal which led to killing of NCP chairperson in Raja. Mr. Malual the candidate for governor of Lakes state asked NEC a pertinent question ‘Who is waited for by the NEC to solve these problems’