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.

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 these
purposes.