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 لقاء --مهم جدا مع باقان, السكرتير العام للحركة الشعبية لتحرير السودان
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SudanVotes interview with SPLM Secretary General
http://www.sudanvotes.com/articles/?id=269
With the news of the SPLM's withdrawal from the Presidential elections in the North, Simon Boboya Wudu goes straight to the top and requests some answers from Mr Pagan Amum, the Secretary General of the SPLM.
Q. Could you give your response to the National Elections Commission's (NEC) announcement, that following the SPLM announcement to withdraw from the Presidential elections, the national elections will go ahead as scheduled between April 11th and 18th April.
The SPLM shall contest these elections in Southern Sudan at the level of President. We have our President Salva Kiir Mayardit. We have ten candidates for governorship and we have candidates running for the National Assembly and Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly. And with that. So we are ready to contest these elections. We are also confident that we will win these elections with a landslide. The SPLM has decided to boycott the Presidential elections in the North because they are rigged.
......we are ready to contest these elections. We are also confident that we will win these elections with a landslide.
Q. You said that you are pulling out from the elections because they are rigged. But it seems the NEC has ignored these considerations and said it is going ahead. How can you be confident that the elections in the other levels like the legislature, and gubernatorial will not be rigged taking the fact that they are also organized by the NEC?
It is true they are organized by the NEC. For us as SPLM in Southern Sudan we will go through with these elections and our purpose here is to be done with the elections and proceed to the referendum while the SPLM in Northern Sudan are not contesting in these elections in Darfur because of the state of emergency imposed by the Northern Government. There is very little that they (NCP and NEC) will be able to do in terms of rigging in Southern Sudan and Blue Nile and therefore we proceed with elections here. The Presidential elections are rigged and we all know this reality. He (Omar Al Bashir) believes he will protect himself from the International Criminal Court (ICC). I don’t think so. Now his task is made easier. Let him win them. We will have no problem and let us see whether that will protect him or not. And we will proceed to the Referendum. Now he will have no reason to obstruct the referendum. If he does, the people of Southern Sudan will definitely defend their right.
There is very little that they (NCP and NEC) will be able to do in terms of rigging in Southern Sudan and Blue Nile and therefore we proceed with elections here.
Q. So you really took a decision you want these elections out of the way - so that you can go ahead with referendum next January?
Absolutely right! It is.
Q. What about your complaints about the ballot papers been printed in Khartoum?
The ballot papers are printed by a printing press which is controlled by the Northern government which the UNDP disqualified as not appropriate to print. Yet the NEC proceeded to give that company the contract to print the ballot papers at a very high cost of four million dollars while there were other bidders who would have printed them at eight hundred thousand dollars. The process is flawed but we want to get these elections out of the way so that we can proceed to the referendum. Of course it’s very important that we have democracy so that people have the power to elect their own government. This will be next issue both in the North as well as in the South.
Q. You talk about Democracy yet there are those members of your party who said the SPLM is not a democratic party itself, people who want to contest internally for positions
which you did not allow them. Now you have independent candidates running in opposition to the SPLM as a result.
This is not true. They contested and they lost to the other colleagues and they couldn't accept their loss. It was a democratic process and this is the beauty of democracy.
Q. In the gubernatorial level people wanted to contest for various governorships within the South and they were told not to put because the SPLM wanted to maintain the incumbent in office. Is this true?
No. The SPLM decision was to give the positions to those in the electoral college and the Politburo. Those who rejected this process decided to stand as independent candidates as they are free to do so.
Q. What do you mean when you say the Politicalburo?
The Political Bureau is the highest decision body that is elected by the national convention and that is how parties work. Parties do not work when they allow individuals to take their own decisions. Parties elect those that take decisions on their behalf. That is how it is all over the world. Otherwise democracy becomes anarchy if every single individual make an individual decision. The independents are free and they are exercising their democratic rights to contest as independent but they are not SPLM.
Q. But these Independent candidates in the South say that the SPLM is harassing, intimidating and breaking up rallies. People feel that they can not go out openly to campaign.
This is absolutely not true. Let them produce one single incident where the SPLM have broken up their rally. That is not true.
Q. We heard of a number of incidents in Yei and KajoKeji.
This is absolutely not true. The SPLM has no culture of stopping anybody expressing their freedom. We are here as a movement to bring about freedom not for us but all our people including those who are opposed to us.
The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the positions or opinions of the publishers of www.sudanvotes.com
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