The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) threatened to devolve the responsibility of implementing the Abyei referendum to the area’s local administration. The statement comes after the argument over the appointment of the area’s referendum commission continues, Sudan Tribune website reported.
Under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), Abyei is due to hold a referendum at the same time as south Sudan’s referendum on self-determination in January 2011 to decide whether to join the south or the north.
The Abyei Area Referendum Act, passed at the end of 2009, stipulated that a referendum commission should be established as soon as the law came into force. More than eight months later the commission remains unformed because of disputes between the SPLM and the National Congress Party (NCP), over the composition of the commission’s members.
Pagan Amum, SPLM’s secretary-general, yesterday threatened that if the NCP rejects the SPLM’s nominee for the chairmanship of Abyei Referendum Commission his party would conduct Abyei’s referendum directly through the region’s local administration.