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Sudan lawmakers adopt law on referendum for southern independence

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Sudanese lawmakers on Tuesday adopted a law addressing how a 2011 referendum for southern independence will be conducted. Agreed to earlier this month by leaders of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) of President Omar al-Bashir and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) of Salva Kiir, the referendum will require a 60 percent voter turnout and a 51 percent affirmative vote in order to pass. SPLM lawmakers and other southern representatives withdrew from the proceedings in protest, concerned that the allowance of absentee voting by southerners living elsewhere will negatively affect the vote. Under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended two decades of civil war, Sudan is expected to hold its first democratic multi-party elections in almost a quarter of a century in April 2010. Although the country's parliament approved the appointment of an electoral commission to oversee the vote, the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and the SPLM accused each other of fraud, torture, intimidation, and sabotage as voters began registering last month. In July 2008, the parliament passed a long-anticipated electoral law dictating how the country's parliamentary seats will be allotted. The law reserves some seats for candidates chosen by popular vote, and some for proportional representation of political parties including seats reserved for women.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on December 22, 2009 (boomark / email).