Scottish Catholic Observer

A huge turnout of voters has headed to the polls for the Sudanese referendum with the quorum already exceeded before polling closed at the weekend.

The referendum is expected to see an overwhelming majority vote for the largely Christian south of Africa’s largest country to secede from the Muslim north, following decades of civil war.

By last Friday the supervising commission had confirmed that more than 65 per cent of registered voters had already gone to the polls while there were reported turnouts of more than 90 per cent in some parts of the south. In the capital, Juba, six centres had more than 2500 votes for secession compared with a maximum of just 25 votes for unity.

Church verifies turnout

The voter turnout was in agreement with what Fr Cyril Odia, director of Radio Don Bosco in Tonj, in the South Sudanese state of Warrap, told the Missionary News Service Africa.

Fr Odia said the voter participation was very high in all the regions where the radio has correspondents, in Warrap as well as the states of Unity and Western Bahr al-Ghazal.

“For four days in Tonj there were unending queues at the polls, despite the fact that many had to walk hours to reach makeshift offices,” Fr Odia said.

Peaceful protest

Despite widespread fears of violence ahead of the weeklong poll European observers said—in their first official judgement of the poll on Monday—that the referendum was credible and well organised.

“The European Union election observation mission assess the voting process of the Southern Sudan referendum credible and well-organised in a mostly peaceful environment,” a preliminary statement said. Veronique de Keyser, the EU mission’s chief, said that ‘free and peaceful voting took place, with an overwhelming turnout.’

He added that the referendum campaign was conducted peacefully in south Sudan, where the vast majority of voters were registered, with ‘only isolated cases of intimidation’ by government security officials at voting centres.

Results

Preliminary results are expected by the end of the month and south Sudan would become an independent nation on July 9, according to the terms of the 2005 north-south peace deal that promised the referendum.

Speaking publicly for the first time following the close of voting the president of southern Sudan, Salva Kiir, urged his people to forgive the north of the country for the killings that took place during the two decades of war.