20100823
reuters

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - South Sudan's ruling party said on Monday it would accept a northerner in a key post on the commission planning a referendum on the region's independence because having the vote on time in January was more important.

Referendum Commission Chairman Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil had told Reuters the five southerners in the nine-member commission would vote as a bloc to prevent a northerner taking the post of secretary-general, who would control the commission's funds.

He had threatened to resign if the deadlock had continued, a move which would have delayed the vote from January 9.

But on Monday the ruling, former rebel, Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) said it would not oppose a northerner taking the post if his deputy could be from the south.

Senior SPLM official Yasir Arman said the party was focused on holding the vote on time. "The secretary-general is not the issue -- having the referendum on time is," he said. "There's a deputy secretary-general so he can be a southerner."

The SPLM has said that any delay in the vote could trigger violence among southerners.

The referendum is the climax of a 2005 north-south peace deal ending Africa's longest civil war which claimed an estimated 2 million lives and destabilised much of east Africa.

But the partners have bickered over implementing much of the deal, which was supposed to enshrine a democratic transformation and the sharing of power and oil wealth.

However, delays have meant the commission was formed more than two years late, leaving it just six months to plan the vote which will likely create the world's newest nation state.