Sudan, presidential campaign on the starting blocks

The countdown to April elections has officially started when, on January, 27 evening, the National Elections Commission (NEC) closed nominations to presidential and legislative ballots. The presidential campaign can thus start. And it will probably be a real competition.

As soon as the nominations officially started, on 12 January, the ruling National Congress Party confirmed the candidature of the incumbent, president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who the day before had retired as commarder-in-chief of the armed forces, as requested by the law to be able to run for Sudan’s highest post. Few days after came the first surprise: after a meeting of the SPLM Political Bureau in the southern capital, Juba, the former rebels’ secretary general announced the nomination of Yasir Arman, the party’s deputy secretary general for the northern sector, as SPLM presidential candidate.

Arman, a northerner and an Arab Muslim, will thus challenge Bashir for the presidency of the Republic in Khartoum. But he won’t be alone. One after the other, many opposition parties also fielded their candidates. Among the first, there was Hassan al-Turabi’s Popular Congress Party, whose presidential candidate is Abdallah Deng Nhial, a Muslim southerner who was part of Bashir’s government before al-Turabi lost a bitter leadership battle in 1999/2000. But the presidential race gained momentum when, one day before the deadline, former prime minister Sadiq Al-Mahdi submitted his nomination papers to the NEC.

Al-Mahdi, a heavyweight of Sudanese politics, leads the Umma Party, which won the latest free elections held in Sudan 24 years ago. He was the prime minister of the government dismissed by al-Bashir’s coup in 1989 and has thereafter remained at the opposition, spending several years in prison and exile. His decisions to take part to the presidential race, combined with SPLM’s decision to field their own candidate instead of simply backing al-Bashir, will most probably make the contest real.

As far as the South is concerned, the incumbent, president Salva Kiir Mayardit, who is also first vice-president of the Republic and chairperson of the SPLM, was confirmed as his party’s candidate. In the race for South Sudan’s presidency, Salva Kiir will face the opposition of Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin, former Foreign Minister and leader of the splinter SPLM-DC. Seen as a close ally of Bashir’s NCP, Lam Akol was probably surprised by the ruling party statement, issued while the deadline for the nominations was expiring, that the NCP will back Salva Kiir in the southern contest, asking the SPLM to withdraw their candidate for the national contest, Yasir Arman, and back instead president al-Bashir.

The southern presidential election will probably have an influence on the South’s 2011 referendum on selfdetermination. Kiir’s choice to run in the regional contest instead of the national one appears to be an indication of SPLM leadership’s priorities. President Bashir himself, while in Yambio for the official celebrations of the CPA fifth anniversary, said he will be the first to recognize South Sudan indipendence if still at the helm of the country whether and when southerners choose it. A possibility Jean Ping, the AU Commission chairperson, has described as a “catastrophic scenario”.

Photo credit: Stein Ove Korneliussen

Written by: Irene

Filed Under: Conflict, Sudan Observatory

Tags: Bashir, candidates, elections, Kiir, referendum

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About Irene

Irene Panozzo (Dr.) is researcher and journalist, expert of Sudanese history and politics. Irene’s research work has been focusing on Sudan for more than ten years, with a particular focus on North-South relationship. Her research interests also include the Chinese presence in Africa and the international relations of African countries. Irene holds a bachelor’s in International and Diplomatic Sciences from the University of Trieste and a PhD in History, Institutions and International Relations of Extra European Countries from the University of Pisa.

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