Nearly 99% of southern Sudanese voters chose secession in this month's independence referendum, clearing the way for Sudan to split in two.
The official preliminary results were announced at a ceremony attended by a crowd of several thousand people in the southern capital Juba today. The figures showed that voter turnout was 98% - far above the 60% threshold required for the result to be valid. Subject to confirmation of the final result next month, and pending legal challenges, southern Sudan will be free to declare independence on 9 July. "This is what we voted for, so that people can be free in their own country ...
I say congratulations a million times," southern Sudan's president Salva Kiir told the crowd, who had assembled at the grave of the liberation leader John Garang, who died in a helicopter crash in 2005. The ceremony ended with the people singing of "the promised land", something southerners have dreamed of since colonial rule ended in the 1950s and the Arab-led government in Khartoum took power. Decades of marginalisation and conflict followed, with the most recent north-south war from 1983 to 2005
causing about 2 million deaths.The peace agreement that ended the war gave southerners the option to secede through a referendum after a six-year interim period.
Such was the anticipation before the vote that hundreds of thousands of people queued before dawn across the vast, undeveloped south to cast their ballots on 9 January even though the voting booths were open for a week.
The ballot has been commended by observer groups, though some problems with tallying have been reported. Many feared President Omar al-Bashir's regime in the north - which opposes secession - would use violence or other means to disrupt the vote, but it did not happen.
{{/usCountry}}The ballot has been commended by observer groups, though some problems with tallying have been reported. Many feared President Omar al-Bashir's regime in the north - which opposes secession - would use violence or other means to disrupt the vote, but it did not happen.
{{/usCountry}}This, added to Bashir's comments that he wanted to enjoy "brotherly" relations with the south should it secede, led to rare praise for the often-maligned leader, both internationally, and in southern Sudan.