Sudan

This study attempts to analyse the major challenges encountered in the organisation of the Southern Sudan Referendum on Self-Determination and how these challenges were addressed, enabling the referendum to take place in a peaceful environment, with a high degree of transparency and fairness. In doing so it aims to identify a few lessons which, though emerging from the particular experience of the Sudan, can be used as a general paradigm in future similar contexts. The Southern Sudan Referendum Commission had less than four months to prepare, organise and conduct the operations within a broad mandate conferred by the Southern Sudan Referendum Act, many sections of which lacked clarity. The interpretation and application of this law represented, in several instances, a serious challenge to the organisation of the referendum, adding complexity to a process already made difficult by time and operational constraints amplified by the size of the territory and the highly sensitive political environment characterised by mistrust among the partners in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The study begins with a brief introduction to the political and legal background of the referendum and of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission, including its role and structure. It proceeds with an analysis of the legal and regulatory framework, aimed at identifying the main challenges to the process and the solutions found in order to allow the referendum to take place in a timely, peaceful and orderly manner.

The main purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of why African electoral systems should be reformed and how to do so in order to improve the quality of representation, participation, and government effectiveness. We attempt to offer a generic framework, a menu, so to speak, whereby African political parties and policy makers can reflect on the current state of play vis-à-vis their electoral systems and then decide whether a comprehensive or partial electoral reform agenda is needed. The paper also delineates the various institutions and stakeholders that should be involved in the electoral system reform process. This is a call to improve the reform process instead of entrusting it with a limited range of state-sponsored institutions, which often create more problems than those they contrive to solve. The paper is divided into four sections: a) a synoptic exposé of electoral reforms; b) the various types of electoral reforms and the factors which militate against them; c) lessons from the African experience with electoral system reforms; and d) an analysis of the main stakeholders required to steer a comprehensive electoral system reform agenda.

Three fundamental points underpin the paradigm of electoral conflict resolution. First, resolving a particular electoral conflict does not imply that disputing parties will never resort to conflict. In Africa, political, economic, and social issues are deeply intertwined, a link which generates various forms of tensions and conflicts. The paradigm of conflict resolution, in this context, then, means disputing parties may revert to conflict, but not necessarily over electoral issues. Secondly, inbuilt in the paradigm is the recognition that some conflicts can become intractable or protracted. Such conflicts need to be significantly transformed into forms that can be approached constructively. Thirdly, the rationale for resolving electoral conflicts is not to compel the parties to conform to the same political ideologies, persuasions, or worldviews. Neither is the rationale to compel disputing parties to adopt similar perspectives and approaches to political issues, or articulate similar political viewpoints. The rationale for resolving electoral conflicts is to encourage stakeholders in the electoral process and conflicting parties in a particular polity to co-exist peacefully despite their different worldviews, political biases and ideologies. These three fundamental points lay the theoretical and analytical foundations of this paper.

This paper argues that democracy can better facilitate and promote development when it is transformed from the institutional level, where it was at the time of transition, to the substantive level, where it is more likely to yield the ‘dividends of democracy’ and become more relevant to the lives of ordinary citizens. This transformative process at a minimum requires the institutionalisation of participation/citizen empowerment, accountability and legitimacy. After making the point that democracy and development are mutually reinforcing, the paper examines how human rights and elections can be strengthened to serve thesenpurposes.