South Sudan’s mostly peaceful vote comes to an end

BOR, JUBA and RUMBEK, South Sudan — As polls closed on Saturday after a week of voting, there was little doubt the majority of voters would choose separation from the North, a result that will split Africa’s largest country.

Polling centers across southern Sudan, a territory the size of Texas, closed at 5 p.m. local time on Saturday, seven days after voting started, but by mid-week it was already clear that turnout had reached the 60-percent threshold required for the vote to be valid.

Northern officials echoed President Omar al-Bashir’s earlier remarks confirming that Khartoum would accept the results of the vote.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, in Sudan at the head of an observer mission said: “I think [the North] will recognize the results immediately.

“When the official statement is made of the results of the referendum, my conviction is that the North, including [Bashir] would accept the results,” he said.

Official results are not expected for some weeks but there is liitle doubt that the South will have voted overwhelmingly for secession. In recognition of the fact that an estimated 2 million southern Sudanese live outside their country, polls opened in eight countries around the world to accomodate the Sudanese diaspora.

At polling centers visited by GlobalPost in the regional towns of Bor and Rumbek earlier in the week turnout had, in many cases, already topped 60 percent and was far higher in some.

Fears of violent unrest in the South that might disrupt the referendum proved unfounded. In Jonglei state, where rebellious factions are led by dissident Gen. George Athor and warlord David Yau Yau, officials told GlobalPost there had been no security problems reported.

“The referendum is the concern of all southerners regardless of their political struggles,” said Boloch John, a member of the Jonglei state referendum committee headquartered in Bor.

For much of the latter part of the week, although polling centers stayed open, things moved very slowly with voters turning up one by one. At the Malual-Kodi polling center in Rumbek a yellow banner to identify the center hung from the lower branches of a neem tree, while another was pinned to the tree’s bark.

Red and white tape marked the boundary of the neatly swept patch of dirt where tables, a yellow-curtained booth and a ballot box stood. Polling officials and observers rested on chairs waiting for the trickle of voters to arrive.

The polling center’s boss, Josephat Agum, a staggeringly tall man even by local standards was grinning widely on Tuesday afternoon because already 1,800 out of 2,400 votes had been cast. “This means the vote will count. We will be free,” he said.

The mostly peaceful referendum was, however, marred by clashes between Ngok Dinka and Arab Misseriya tribesman close to the town of Abyei in a fertile, oil-producing border region claimed by both North and South.

A parallel referendum due to have been held there on Jan. 9 did not take place after the two sides failed to agree on whether the semi-nomadic Misseriya, who migrate into Abyei to water their herds during the dry season, should be allowed to vote alongside the Ngok Dinka residents.

Tensions between the two communities exploded into violence last weekend. When the fighting subsided at least 40 people were dead. Early Friday it was reported that a peace meeting of tribal elders and community leaders had defused some of the tensions.

Few expected the division of a state and birth of a new one to have got this far, this peacefully but much of the hard work lies ahead.

The status of Abyei is one of a range of difficult issues that are still to be negotiated in the next six months before independence of the South is officially declared. Also up for discussion are sharing of billions of dollars of annual oil revenues and national debt valued at close to $40 billion, border demarcation and frontier security arrangements, sharing of water resources, citizenship and nationality.