NCP Files Complaints On Irregularities In The Registration Process

22 November 2010 – (Khartoum) – The NCP has filed a number of complaints to the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission indicating irregularities regarding the voter registration exercise in northern Sudan.

The Presidential Assistant and NCP Deputy Chairman for Party’s affairs, Doctor Nafie Ali Nafie, spoke to the press after his meeting with the SSRC in Khartoum on Sunday.

[Dr. Nafie Ali Nafie]: “We have presented to the commission a number of complains written. We noted that the turnout for registration is very poor indeed and we outlined numerous reasons for this poor turnout. There are many obstacles and much of lack of interest by registration officials for citizens and refuse them to register on claim that identifiers do not know them despite the fact that some of them are having legal documents and are not in need of identifier, and we noted that the identifiers are young people they are not traditional chiefs in Khartoum who know people and we also noted that some of them are from outside the zones where registration centers are located. Some of the issues we have listed are political issues and it is not the responsibility of the SSRC to tackle these issues for example the issues of intimidation and assaults and we have examples.”

Doctor Nafie also accused the SPLM of preventing some tribes in southern Sudan from registering for the referendum.

[Dr. Nafie Ali Nafie]: “Groups of people who were born of grand-grand parents in southern Sudan have been prevented from registering based on claims that they are not southerners. The example of these is the whole of Malakia anybody living in this Sudan or just heard of Sudan knows that there is a suburb called Malakia in Malakal and in Juba and they are originally southerners, they were prevented from registering. The entire tribes in Upper Nile States living and born of grand-grand parents were also prevented from registering. Also in Wau, it is well known that there is a suburb called Hai Fallata and it has been in Wau before the Turkey condominium rule people there were also prevented from registering that they are not southern tribes.”

Doctor Nafie said that they have briefed the SSRC of the detention of the NCP youth representative in the national referendum corporation, Mister Zhueir Ahmid at New Site.