ELECTORAL LAW MAY NOT BE ENACTED UNTIL APRIL

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KHARTOUM 000025 SIPDIS DEPT FOR AF/SPG, S/CRS, AF SE WILLIAMSON ADDIS ABABA FOR USAU DEPT PLS PASS USAID FOR AFR/SUDAN SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL KPKO KDEM SOCI AU UNSC SU SUBJECT: ELECTORAL LAW MAY NOT BE ENACTED UNTIL APRIL REF: (A) KHARTOUM 2011 (B) KHARTOUM 1971 (C)KHARTOUM 1834 ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: The draft electoral law for 2009 national and state elections is still being debated in the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC). Although the current session of the National Assembly has been extended through 16 January, the Assembly will be tied up with other business and will likely not discuss the ratification of the electoral law if presented with it in early January. This means that the draft law will be open for discussion in the Assembly in April 2008 at the earliest, and a newly formed National Electoral Commission (NEC) may only have 10 or 11 months to plan and execute elections by the CPA-mandated deadline. END SUMMARY. -------------- THE ELECTORAL LAW - A CONSULTATIVE PROCESS -------------- ¶2. (U) On 27 December, Abdallah Idris, a Yale Law School graduate and current co-chair of the NCRC, advised poloff of new developments regarding the Sudanese electoral law. [COMMENT: Idris, a moderate member of the NCP, has been an influential guiding force on electoral law development. During the recent SPLM-NCP impasse, Idris encouraged SPLM members on the NCRC to remain engaged in the drafting of the law, signaling his commitment to reaching party consensus on the law. END COMMENT.] The NCRC, created per the CPA and composed of 60 members, more than 80 percent of which are SPLM and NCP party affiliates, is tasked with preparing draft laws for the implementation of the CPA and the process of democratization in Sudan. Although normal NCRC procedure calls for subcommittees to first draft bills and then present them to political parties for input, parties (even those not represented on the NCRC - such as Umma and the PCP) were asked by the NCRC to first present their views because the electoral law is such a sensitive piece of legislation. Although the NCRC has significantly delayed the process, Idris stated, all of the political parties approached submitted detailed recommendations for the draft bill. Idris claims that this process, which started seven months ago, has created a positive consultative process between the political parties and the NCRC. By drafting the law in this fashion, the NCRC hopes to gain buy-in and create national consensus on a final draft, so that it will be difficult for the National Assembly to vote against its passage. ¶3. (U) Currently, the NCRC is now working on its sixth draft of the law. Idris alleged that there is now consensus among parties on the law except for the percentages of the mixed system. The NCP, he stated, is pushing for a system whereby a majority (60 percent) of the voting would be done by direct representation (also known as "first past the post"),a minority (15 percent) would be by proportional representation, and 25 percent of seats would be reserved for women. The weakness of such a system, noted Idris, is that it favors election of the bigger parties (NCP and SPLM) rather than a mix of parties. He said smaller parties are supporting the implementation of a mixed system whereby 50 percent of the vote is by direct representation and 50 percent is by proportional representation (to include at least 25 percent of seats which will be filled by women.) Although the SPLM originally supported the proposal of the first system, Idris stated that the second option is gaining momentum within the SPLM and that the party membership is changing its position. 4.(U) When the NCRC agrees on a final draft of the electoral bill, it will call a press conference to make the news public. "Although people in power are usually not keen on elections", he said, the NCRC is pushing the parties toward immediate consensus for completion of a final draft. He estimated that the bill should be released to the National Assembly in early January. 5.(U) As for the naming of a National Electoral Commission (NEC), Idris said that the Presidency has been asked to "float names" as to who he may appoint to the nine-person commission. Although the NEC is to be established upon passage of the electoral law, Idris explained that "time is of the essence" and that the Presidency must give thought to the Commission in advance of the law. Legally, President Al-Bashir is to appoint commission members with the consent of First Vice-President Salva Kiir Mayardit. NEC members must then be approved in the National Assembly by a two-thirds majority. -------------- JANUARY PASSAGE UNLIKELY, SAYS SPLM -------------- ¶6. (U) On 31 December, poloff met with Manoah Aligo Donga, Chairman of the SPLM Caucus in the National Assembly. Aligo remarked that the NCRC has taken "too long" in preparing a draft of the electoral KHARTOUM 00000025 002 OF 003 law and stated that he was certain that it will not be reviewed by the National Assembly in its extended January session. The extended session, which is due to close on 16 January, will be used to finish debating issues such as the police law and the National Language Act, said Aligo. The schedule for the two weeks is "full", and there will be no time to address new issues such as the electoral law (NOTE: This is contrary to what some local news sources have reported, that the extended session was created specifically to debate the police law and the electoral law. END NOTE) If Aligo is correct, then the draft law will not be reviewed by the National Assembly until the next meeting of the National Assembly in April ¶2008. He speculated that the Assembly will ratify the law by May 2008 and that the NEC will be named sometime around June 2008. Given that the rainy season begins in April each year, the NEC will only have 10 months to plan for and carry out elections by the CPA-mandated deadline if the timing of events follows Aligo's predictions. ¶7. (U) The National Assembly made no provision for elections funding in its 2008 budget plan because of the lack of an electoral law. Aligo informed poloff that as soon as the NEC is established, it will have to file for elections funding from the GNU's reserve fund. He was skeptical that elections funding, both domestic and international (donor-given),would arrive on time. Aligo also expressed concern about the ability of the NEC to pull off elections in such a short time given the logistical challenges they will face (i.e. - lack of venues for polling stations, difficulty in distributing materials, etc). Lastly, he noted that a voting system favoring majority direct representation would benefit the SPLM. "We control a huge chunk of this country," and the 60 (direct)-15(proportional)-25(women) split would be advantageous for the SPLM. -------------- WRONG FOCUS? -------------- ¶8. (U) Sudanese Professor Mukhtar El-Assam, former University of Khartoum professor and current professor of political science at Garden City College, warned that the Sudanese are putting too much stock in national and state assembly elections and not enough stock in presidential and gubernatorial elections. El-Assam, an elections expert who received his Masters and PhD in the UK and routinely writes on electoral issues in local newspapers, claimed that because so much attention is focused on the negotiation of percentages for a mixed electoral system, people are ignoring the importance of selecting the next Presidents (of the GNU and the GoSS) and state governors. So far, he said, only the NCP has put forward a presidential candidate for the 2009 national elections, which is Al-Bashir. He opined that SPLM will not put up a candidate for the GNU presidency, stating that they are content to fill the slot of the first vice-president. The SPLM will be most focused on winning the presidency of the GoSS, he said. (NOTE: In theory, all Sudanese citizens who are registered to vote will be able to cast a ballot for the presidency of the GNU in the national elections. Additionally, Southern Sudanese, who are registered to vote in the elections in the South, will also be able to cast a ballot for the presidency of the GoSS. If a candidate from the North wins the GNU presidency, the person who is elected President of the GoSS will be named the first vice president of the GNU. If a candidate from the South wins the GNU presidency, the majority party in the National Assembly will select the first vice president. END NOTE.) ¶9. (U) El-Assam also discussed the potential hurdles in carrying out the elections by July 2009. First, he said, the census must take place no later than mid-April 2008 in order to determine accurate voter constituencies. Second, special attention must be paid to voter registration, which without an NEC in place currently lacks any planning, financial resources, or manpower. Third, publication of the registration will be a complex process. Finally, conducting campaigns and elections in Darfur will be challenging given the current security environment. ¶10. (SBU) COMMENT: Although delay in completing a final draft of the electoral law is nothing new, we were hopeful that the National Assembly would ratify the draft law, if received from the NCRC and then the Council of Ministers, in its extended January session. Even though our SPLM source indicated that discussion on the electoral law cannot be worked into the extended session, the real hold-up seems to continue to be the NCRC (surely the Police Law and the Language Act cannot be more important than the Elections Law at this point in Sudan's history.) While Abdallah Idris claims that the NCRC is looking to reach full consensus among the parties on the law before it moves to the National Assembly, the fact of the matter is that both parties have an interest in delaying the electoral process and seem content to quibble over a ten percent difference in direct versus proportional voting. The SPLM wants to buy time on the census so that the results will be more complete and include the KHARTOUM 00000025 003 OF 003 maximum number of their constituents. Both the NCP and the SPLM are content with the status quo, with hefty oil revenues currently shared primarily between the two CPA partners (with revenues going to the GNU and GoSS.) However, both parties risk undermining their partnership and the CPA with their delays, and the longer the hold-up, the more difficult it will be for the NEC to deliver quality elections in 2009. FERNANDEZ