20110115
Sudan Tribune

Khartoum — The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in Sudan believes that the referendum process currently underway meets the threshold that would allow it to be recognized, a party official said today.

Southern Sudan's week-long independence referendum began last Sunday and is likely to split Sudan in two.

The vote was part of a 2005 peace agreement that ended two decades of north-south civil war that killed 2 million people.

"I think until now the process is going smoothly. The most important thing is that it is going very, very peacefully ... I think it will meet with the standards required," NCP's head of political bureau Ibrahim Ghandour told Reuters on Friday.

"We still wait to see the final report of our observers as well as international observers," Ghandour added.

The statements mark a change from more defiant ones during the voter registration process which the NCP claimed was marred by violations and intimidation to Southerners by the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) in control of the South.

Officials from the NCP made it clear at the time that they would not recognize the referendum outcome if these issues are not addressed by commission overseeing the process.

It is alleged that the Northern party is behind the lawsuit filed with the constitutional court last month by a group of lawyers seeking an annulment of the voter registration and dissolution of the South Sudan Referendum Commission (SSRC).

The case is on hold as the court lacks the quorum to decide on the matter due to the absence of three judges from the bench.

Ghandour said that should the vote come in favor of secession they will cooperate with the new state. "If secession occurs we are ready to support a new state and we look forward to brotherly relations with our ex-citizens."

In a related issue the U.S. special envoy for Sudan affirmed Washington's intention to remove the country from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism by July if the North accepts the referendum results.

"We have told both the north and the south that if the referendum does go smoothly then the president [Barack Obama] will initiate those actions," Gration told reporters.

But he cautioned that the procedures for de-listing could take some time.

"We are not going to shortcut the statutory obligations of removing somebody," he said. "If everything goes smoothly it could be done by the end of the interim period ... We will do everything from our side to expedite this process," Gration said.

The U.S. State Department added Sudan to its state terror list in 1993, accusing Khartoum of harboring local and international militants including for a time al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Countries on the list of state sponsors of terrorism cannot receive US aid or buy US weapons and a raft of restrictions on financial and other dealings. The list currently includes Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria.

Gration said at a Congress hearing in 2009 that the terrorism designation for Sudan is no longer valid, and called it a "political decision".