Plebiscite: USSP urges South Sudanese overseas not to register

United South Sudan Party strongly urges South Sudanese nationals outside the Southern Sudanese territory not to register for the upcoming plebscite in January 2011.

The reason for this is that Section 27 (2) of the Southern Sudan Referendum Act 2009, among others, makes it unnecessarily difficult for those in northern Sudan and overseas to have a credible, clean and fair registration process and result. In addition, there are disturbing reports by South Sudanese communities in the relevant countries of irregularities in the IOM-administered registration exercise [IOM is the International Organization for Migration], and that the conditions are not favourable as the whole process is vulnerable to fraud. (It’s worth noting that South Sudanese communities in a number of the concerned overseas countries have decided not to register.) The requirements of Section 27 of the Act may make things even worse for those willing to cast their vote in January 2011.

In order to avoid this confusion, USSP strongly urges South Sudanese overseas not to register because they may not be able to cast their vote. And also this will help to expose any irregularities that may be present in the registration process.