Sudanese go to the polls on Sunday

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that Kenya helped to broker five years ago, ending years of hostilities between Khartoum and Southern Sudan, comes to test this Sunday as the country holds its first multi-party elections in two decades.

The elections which will also set the stage for a referendum about the future of Southern Sudan as a political unit are expected to define the country’s post-CPA period.

However, more and more parties and their candidates have said they would boycott the elections, citing lack of goodwill from the north, a situation that analysts say could push the country back to civil war.

“The CPA is under threat and we are calling on Igad (Inter Governmental Authority On Development to which Kenya is a member) - who helped bring it about -- to act before it is too late,” John Duku, head of mission for the government of South Sudan in Nairobi told the Business Daily recently.

An enduring peace in Sudan is the dream of Kenya whose firms and personnel have moved in large numbers to take part in the country’s reconstruction.

A warring Sudan would compound Kenya’s security dilemma as more routes for illicit small arms are likely to open up in the northern part of the country.

Most of the small arms that have be used to take insecurity to alarming levels in the country are believed to have emanated from war torn countries in the region.

The CPA provided for a general election this year to be followed by a referendum to determine the south’s political future next year.

Analysts are warning that the growing mistrust between north and south could undermine the elections and snowball into a full-scale civil war.

“The international community cannot afford to ignore these developments if a return to civil war in Sudan is to be prevented,” President of the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation Barbara Unmüßig, said in a press released e-mailed to the Business Daily.

On Thursday, Heinrich Böll released a 120-page publication titled “Sudan – No Easy Ways Ahead” in which different experts have looked at the scenarios for the post-CPA period, a deal which ends in 2011.

Ruling parties

Alex de Waal, a leading expert on Sudan says one such scenario is the complete ungovernability of the country, which he argues can be discerned from the ongoing decline of trust and legitimacy that have created a situation in which staying in power is the only thing that either of the ruling parties can achieve.

Both sides of the Sudan have been accused by the international community of building arms for possible return to war in case the CPA fails to deliver a lasting peace.

“Sudan’s security race resembles a cold war in which each side is hoping to outspend the other,” Mr de Waal writes.