Southern Sudan Before the ‘Referendum for Freedom’

Southern Sudan’s historic referendum on whether to stay in or secede from a united Sudan is rapidly approaching. The political tide is flowing toward an independent country but the politics of Sudan’s North-South political transition remain beset with challenges.

Southern Sudan is on the threshold of becoming an independent state, according to widespread popular Southern sentiment and the terms of Sudan’s North-South peace agreement that allow the right to self-determination through a referendum. The sense of historic inevitability about this outcome, which would be achieved through the ‘referendum for freedom’, is set against an intensely political atmosphere. There are myriad risks of this vision being derailed, including problems derived from the second referendum on the future status of the special administrative area of Abyei. The outstanding challenge today lies in managing the probable break-up of Sudan in such a way as to best ensure peace. Providing war does no return, any such achievement, in itself considerable, will be followed by the formidable challenges of sustaining peace.