No.NEC/1/A/1
Date: 5th December, 2009

FASID BBL Seminar Summary

In this Brown Bag Lunch Seminar, Professor Abdalla AhmedAbdalla, Deputy Chairman of the National Elections Commission ofSudan, gave us a comprehensive explanation about the general electionsin Sudan scheduled to be held in April2010. The following is thesummary of his presentation.

Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)The CPA, endorsed on January 2005 between the ruling National
Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement(SPLM), brought the end to the war between Northern Sudan andSouthern Sudan. The main characteristics of the CPA are the following:•••••

Power-and-wealth-sharing arrangements between NorthernSudan and Southern Sudan.
Emphasis on the need for restoration of peace, justice,reconciliation between Northern Sudan and Southern Sudan.
6 years of interim period starting from 2005.
Promotion of decentralization in the system of government.
Self-determination for the people in Southern Sudan.

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The above two parties have agreed to open peaceful democratic
exercises of public power in the CPA through political pluralism
including approval of opposition parties other than the two main
parties even though the CPA was concluded by those two parties. To
sum up, the CPA is a historic agreement because it ended the war,
arranges durable, sustainable peace, and opens up opportunities forother political parties to participate in politics through free, fair andtransparent elections.

National Elections Commission (NEC):Election process presently ongoing in Sudan is governed by threebasic legal documents, which are CPA documents, Transitional National
Constitution of 2005, and National Elections Act of 2008. These provide
for the legal framework for the elections. National Elections Act
provides for the establishment of national Elections Commission
composed of 9 members including Chairman, Deputy Chairman and other
7 commissioners (2 women, 5 men). They are appointed by thePresidency, and NEC is independent from the Government. The maintask of the Commission is to organize and conduct general elections withfreedom and justice.

Complexity of Elections:
6 level elections will be held in Sudan. The details are as follows:••••••

Elections of the President of the Republic of Sudan.
Elections of the President of the Southern Sudan.
Elections of Governors of each of the 25 States.
Elections of National Legislative Assembly for the wholeSudan.
Elections of Legislative Assembly of Southern Sudan composedof 10 States.
Elections of Legislative Assembly for each of the 25 States.

These 3 Legislative Elections (National Assembly, Legislative
Assembly of Southern Sudan, and Legislative Assembly for each ofthe 25 States) and 3 executive elections (the President of the Republicof Sudan, the President of the Southern Sudan, and Governors of eachof the 25 States) will be held at the same time, which will makeelections complex. Furthermore, the detail of elections is different2

from each other. For example, for the President of the Sudan’selection, 50% plus 1 of all votes cast are required for its election.
Otherwise, a second round will be made between two top candidates.
However, in case of Governor’s elections, those who get the highest
votes will win. Another example is National Legislative Assembly.
There will be 450 seats altogether which should be allocated asfollows; 60% (270 seats) based on geographical constituencies, 25%(112 seats) for women, and 15% (68 seats) for political parties. This
rule applies to the other Legislative Assembly election too. Therefore,election operation will be extremely complex. There will be 12 boxesin Southern Sudan, while these are 8 boxes in Northern Sudan. NEChas been working on how to solve these complexities. NEC hasembarked on some training and educational programs to tackle thesecomplexities. NEC has had several workshops for the staff as well as
Sudanese people. NEC has also conducted training for 400 young
journalists on how to cover the elections. These training programs
were extremely important since last time Sudan had elections was in1986. People under 46 years old have not experienced any electionsin Sudan. NEC also has close contacts and cooperation with foreign
donors such as the European Commission, USAID, Japan as well as
UN systems. Particularly, NEC is very grateful to Japan for its
contribution of US$ 10.3 million both for technical and material
supports for our elections through UNDP’s scheme.

Timeframe of Elections:
Right after appointment of NEC at the beginning of this year, they
immediately embarked on designing a framework of elections because
elections are series of technical operations based on election laws. The
first timeframe for the elections that NEC designed was to have pollingby February, 2010. However, because the delay of population census, thecensus results, NEC had to extend the timeframe to April, 2010. Soon
after the result of population census was approved by the Presidency,
NEC started working on the demarcation of the geographicalconstituencies, calculated the number of seats for the women and thepolitical parties lists. This was followed by the registration process. The
registration cast will be published around mid December. This isfollowed by the nomination stage. NEC distributes seats of National
Legislative Assembly as well as Legislative Assembly for Southern
Sudan, and Legislative Assembly for each State based on the result ofpopulation census. After these series of operations, the political parties
and candidates will embark on their electoral campaign, supervised byNEC, which continues for 60days. In the process of electoral campaign,3NEC will not only monitor fair and free electoral campaign, but also
provides each candidate media exposure on equitable basis. Afterelectoral campaign, comes the time for polling. NEC with the help ofinternational donors monitors the process of polling so that no corruption,
no cheating, and no violations of compliances should be allowed.

Political Aspect of Election:
After the end of elections, there are losers and winners. Theremight be some disagreements with the results of elections, which mightcause conflicts as has happened in the neighboring countries. However,as long as the elections are free, fair and credible, the Sudanese people
have to take these results for granted. This requires a lot of civic
education as well as awareness, understanding, and wisdom of the twomajor political parties and others, and NEC.
I personally have to admit that Sudan, a country just coming out ofconflict, will not have perfect elections, though we will do our best tomake elections as perfect as possible. These coming elections should not
be looked at as bringing democracy to Sudan immediately. Rather, theyshould be looked at as a step to democracy. We all should note thattransition to democracy takes time. Elections will become more andmore perfect as they are repeated. Finally, I would like to finish mypresentation by saying that we will do our best to make these elections
fair and free, so that they can bring democracy and political stability toSudan, which leads to economic stability as well as increased welfare for
the Sudanese people.

/S.E.A./

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