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| Africa Horn |
| Sudan rivals agree on independence process |
| 2009-10-17 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] Former enemies in north and south Sudan have reached agreement on details for a key referendum on the south's full independence, a top southern official said on Friday. "We have overcome the differences over the outstanding issues, and there is an agreement," Riek Machar, vice president of the semi-autonomous south, told reporters. Details of key sticking points over the referendum due in January 2011 were hammered out in his discussions with Sudan's Vice President Ali Osman Taha in the northern capital Khartoum, Machar said. The south is due to vote in the referendum as part of the 2005 peace deal that ended Sudan's 22-year civil war -- the African continent's longest. However, the northern and southern governments had disagreed on how to carry out the referendum. Tensions have been running high between north and south, still divided by the religious, ethnic and ideological differences over which the civil war was fought. "The turnout quorum for registered voters -- we agreed on two-thirds," Machar said. "As for the approval quorum, this is 50 percent plus one," he added. Earlier reports suggested the north was pushing for up to a 75 percent approval percentage for independence for the south to go ahead. The agreement must now be put before the governments in both Khartoum and the southern capital Juba to be ratified, Machar told journalists at Juba airport upon his return from the talks in Khartoum. "I will present it to the (southern) council (of ministers) for the council to look at, before it is initialed by both of us and sent to the National Constitutional Review Commission," he said. Machar said he welcomed the agreement, although the south had been pushing for a lower turnout requirement. "I would have wished the turnout quorum to be a little bit lower, not that the south cannot meet the two-thirds registered voters," he said, but added that it was "manageable." He added the agreement will allow southerners to cast their ballots outside the south, as had been sought by Khartoum. "Southerners will vote in Khartoum as well as in the diaspora, in addition to the main voting area which is southern Sudan," Machar said. |
| Posted by:Fred |