“Carter Center Fails to Consider Key Issues in the South Kordofan Gubernatorial Election”

Eric Reeves | May 19, 2011

The Carter Center has stumbled badly in assessing the enormously consequential South Kordofan gubernatorial election, which produced a “victory” for Khartoum’s candidate, Ahmed Haroun (report available at http://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/sudan-051811.html ). Haroun—handpicked by the regime—was a central figure in the worst years of the Darfur genocide, as well as an energetic participant in the genocidal jihad conducted by the National Islamic Front regime in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan during the early 1990s. This validation of Haroun’s election by the Carter Center appears to reflect, to an inordinate degree, the views of former President Jimmy Carter, whose pronouncements over the years reveal a disturbing myopia when it comes to the nature and behavior of the NIF/NCP regime. Since Carter is notorious for micro-management, there can be little doubt that he influenced the tone and tenor of the report in significant ways.

Former President Jimmy Carter has been harshly judged by many who follow presidential politics. New York Times correspondent Tom Wicker said of Carter in 1980: “[He is a man] whose record of ineptitude stands unmatched since Warren G. Harding, and whose campaign is based on foreign policy crises largely of his own making.” Carter has brought this “unmatched ineptitude” to Sudan for more than two decades.

Carter’s pronouncements at the time of Sudan’s April 2010 national elections were revealingly preposterous, though even the Carter Center was ultimately obliged to admit that the elections were not credible. For example, shortly before the 2010 elections Carter claimed that, “‘If no one gets an absolute majority, then there will be a run-off election in May and I think that’s a high likelihood,’ Carter told reporters during a trip to south Sudan” (Reuters [Juba], February 9, 2010). It is difficult to imagine a more foolish prediction: President al-Bashir of the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party (NIF/NCP) regime won easily and predictably with more than two thirds of the vote. The very notion that the regime would allow itself to be put in the position of having to participate in a run-off election betrays profound ignorance of Khartoum’s attitudes and ambitions—nothing new for Carter.

Unfortunately, Carter found some significant company in his absurd prediction: U.S. Special Envoy Scott Gration declared that Sudan’s national elections would be “as free and fair as possible.” Some international observers had also suggested that even if not entirely successful, the elections would be a move toward “democratization” in Sudan. But in fact, the election was massively fraudulent, hopelessly compromised by the manipulation of census results, registration, and voting; by the physical appropriation of ballot boxes; by widespread and paralyzing insecurity in Darfur; and by deeply intimidating actions on the part of the regime’s security services, which also guaranteed the NIF/NCP monopoly on broadcast media. In short, all the powers of the state were put in service of al-Bashir’s election. The most comprehensive Sudanese human rights assessments of the election and electoral irregularities were produced by the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (February 2010 and May 2010; http://www.acjps.org/Publications.html).

The Darfur Relief and Documentation Center produced a devastating critique of the census that undergirded the elections (January 2010). International observing teams, including the Carter Center, all found that the elections “did not meet international standards,” the euphemism most often deployed to characterize this travesty. Human Rights Watch was blunt in its account of the atmosphere for voting in the North:

Human Rights Watch found that the National Congress Party-dominated government continued to foster a restrictive environment during the voting period through harassment, intimidation, and arrests of activists, opposition members, and election observers.(http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/04/25/sudan-flawed-elections-underscore-need-justice )

There was no move toward “democratization,” and the suggestion of a “run-off”—implying that al-Bashir would not use the state apparatus to secure at least a 51 percent majority—was the most foolish prediction made by any observer. Instead of “democratization,” what has followed is a more tyrannical political monopoly. The Khartoum regime emerged from the elections retaining full control of national wealth and power—and full control of the security services. The crackdown on human rights that has followed the elections has been severe and suggests just how manipulative Khartoum can be (some very small political space was carefully opened shortly before the elections, but not nearly enough to permit real political opposition to gather forces, as Human Rights Watch has made clear).

The Election for Governor in South Kordofan

All this previous electoral history has bearing on the recent election in South Kordofan (May 24), and to suggest otherwise—as the Carter Center does in its report—reflects either a fatuous or tendentious view of Sudanese politics in this extremely volatile and militarily critical state on the North/South border. Indeed, the Carter Center report (hereafter CCR) does a particularly poor job in conveying the military realities defining South Kordofan, the Nuba Mountains in particular, and the implications for Abyei. The CCR authors would do well to read Julie Flint’s compelling and ominous report for Pax Christi (“The Nuba Mountains: Central to Sudan Stability,” January 2011; http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=24931 ) and the numerous authoritative reports from the Small Arms Survey (http://goo.gl/5esWQ). Although the CCR talks about insecurity and alludes to military issues, it does so in ways that convey none of the dangers that presently exist and have been so thoroughly chronicled in these and other reports.

To be sure, as a “technocratic” account of the elections, the CCR is of considerable value—but only as such. It rehearses a good deal of familiar but relevant regional history, legislative and otherwise. It reveals a clear and detailed understanding of the electoral procedures that were to have been followed, the role of the CPA and other agreements, as well as international humanitarian and human rights law. It offers a full narrative of the electoral milestones, though it seems to understate on a consistent basis the significance of electoral problems and controversies; and it nowhere acknowledges how fully the “National Election Commission” is controlled by Khartoum—a fact made abundantly clear during the April 2010 elections.

But the CCR fails fundamentally in appreciating the political context of the South Kordofan election, its importance for Khartoum, and the implications of key actions by senior regime officials: in a PDF document of 18 pages, less than one page is given over to “Political Background to South Kordofan Elections.” And yet this is where any meaningful assessment of the election must begin.

Fortunately, Africa Confidential (AC) has provided a highly informed account (May 13, 2011—complete text below) of just what is politically at stake in the election and which political calculations and electoral machinations determined its outcome. In this, the AC researchers are able to do what an entire team of Carter Center officials were unable to do, and their astute observations make clear that Khartoum was never prepared to allow its war criminal candidate to lose—South Kordofan is simply too important strategically:

It was clear that Ahmed Mohamed Haroun had lost his bid to be elected
Governor of Southern Kordofan when the National Congress Party sent Presidential Assistant Nafi’e Ali Nafi’e to Kadugli on 8 May, the day the results were supposed to be announced. Nafi’e, a former chief of security for whom Ahmed Haroun once worked, told the State Election Commission to declare him winner, say opposition sources. The Commission’s head, Adam Abdin, sought refuge with the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS). The results were rescheduled for 10 May and again delayed, as NCP operatives scrambled to produce new figures. Their methods included the invention of new polling stations: when challenged, the officials replied that voters had found it difficult to reach the other stations, a tactic used last year in Darfur.

This extraordinary report—”The [State Election] Commission’s head, Adam Abdin, sought refuge with the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS)”—is inexcusably omitted from the CCR. Has this no suggestiveness for the Carter Center people? Abdin complained to the Sudan Tribune (May 7, 2011) “that the process of matching votes to registered voters is proceeding slowly and said there are proposals of forming additional committees to speed up the process.” These proposals went nowhere, and Khartoum was determined to brook no delay in announcing results it had already determined; this may account for Abdin’s reported flight following Nafi’e’s inevitably intimidating visit. Nor is there any meaningful discussion in the CCR of the Africa Confidential account of Khartoum’s behavior:

NCP operatives scrambled to produce new figures. Their methods included the invention of new polling stations: when challenged, the officials replied that voters had found it difficult to reach the other stations, a tactic used last year in Darfur.

The belatedly announced new polling stations are in fact acknowledged in the CRR—more than 25 altogether, some established only on the day of voting—but in peculiarly unconcerned fashion: “Better planning would help to prevent such issues in the future” (page 12). But if such added polling stations did spontaneously appear, this and other maneuvers could more than account for Haroun’s evident surge from behind (the Carter Center was able to observe, even very briefly, fewer than 25 percent of the polling stations). For as Africa Confidential notes:

Initial figures obtained by Africa Confidential showed Governor Ahmed’s Deputy, Abdel Aziz Adam el Hilu of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, ahead by about 11,000 votes. His final lead was around 4,000, said an SPLM source on 11 May, claiming that the difference was largely due to NCP rigging.

[Al-Jazeera reported on May 6 that according to figures it had received, el-Hilu had a “comfortable” lead of 14,000, with only six polling centers of 666 still to report; Sudan Tribune, May 6, 2011; http://www.sudantribune.com/ICC-suspect-lags-behind-SPLM,38805 ]

Despite accusations of fraud from many quarters (including northern Sudanese political and academic figures—see appendix to this analysis), the CCR report concludes that the elections were “generally peaceful and credible,” and the Center did “not observe systemic irregularities that would invalidate the results.” But this conclusion ignores one of the CCR’s most troubling findings, one that may explain just how the manipulation of vote totals was achieved (we should recall that even the manipulated final results were very close):

The Carter Center is concerned, however, that election officials appear to have chosen not to use the official database developed to handle the preliminary results. The database is programmed to reject results where the numbers do not reconcile and these results would then be quarantined and investigated before they could be entered. This process was bypassed by the [Kordofan] State High Election Commission, thus removing an important safeguard that can highlight anomalous results. Moreover, this software is used to post results, disaggregated by polling station, on to the NEC website. At the time of this report the results [sic], this has not happened. (page 14)

Why was this available and task-specific database technology not deployed? The CCR offers no answer, and this highlights the importance of what Africa Confidential reports of these “preliminary results”:

The National Election Commission said that the preliminary results could not be changed and the NCP slammed the SPLM ‘adolescent mentality’ for protesting. Northern opposition parties accused the NCP of fraud. [T]he elections, delayed from last year after the SPLM challenged the census figures, benefited from few external monitors, the only widespread and systematic presence being that of the Carter Center.

Khartoum was no more going to allow Haroun to lose than it was al-Bashir in the presidential election (al-Bashir is also under indictment by the ICC, including for genocide). To ignore this reality, to talk around it as the CCR does, to present so blandly and superficially the current political and military realities in South Kordofan, Abyei, and the North/South border regions, is deeply irresponsible and vitiates whatever usefulness the CCR may have had going forward. Africa Confidential again makes the essential point about South Kordofan and the election of its next governor:

South Kordofan is the military backyard for Abyei (which has a special status within the state) and for Upper Nile, Northern Bahr el Ghazal and Unity states in the South, all of which it adjoins. ‘We are especially concerned about the alarming situation in Abyei’, said a 10 May statement by the Troika Britain, Norway, United States. It called on the parties to ‘work together’ to tackle the ‘rising tensions’ in South Kordofan. As ever, it treated both parties even-handedly. The problem with that is obvious in Abyei, where the NCP has persistently reneged on agreements it has signed, exploiting international ‘neutrality’ to shift the situation to its advantage.

This commitment to making all comments and observations as “even-handedly” as possible is indeed at the heart of Western diplomatic strategy. But Africa Confidential is right to argue that international “neutrality” is simply being exploited by Khartoum; for this is yet another case of an intolerable “moral equivalence,” in which the culpability for any and all problems lies equally with Khartoum and its adversaries in the marginalized regions. A recent and grimly illustrative example of this tendency comes from Darfur, where Ibrahim Gambari, head of the UN/African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID), responded to Khartoum’s most recent aerial attacks on civilians: “‘I call upon all parties to exercise the utmost restraint in the use of lethal force,’ Gambari said” (Agence France-Presse [UN/New York], May 18, 2011). But the Darfur rebels have no aerial military assets; and so to bring them within the ambit of his “call,” Gambari deliberately blurs the issue by referring not to deliberate aerial attacks on civilian targets (several villages have been targeted since May 15), but the broadest military designation possible: “lethal force.” Here it is important to keep in mind that Gambari, UNAMID, and the UN (as well as its most important member states) have all been largely silent over the more than 80 attacks confirmed so far in 2011 (see my comprehensive account of aerial bombardment of civilian and humanitarian targets in Sudan for the years 1999-2011, at http://www.sudanbombing.org/).

But the key point for South Kordofan that is lost through moral “neutrality” or “equivalence” is highlighted with unrelenting acuity by Africa Confidential:

The NCP cannot afford to lose control in South Kordofan. State governors have great power, which is why they are normally party men. They chair the state’s vital Security Committee. Several of the militias plaguing the South are based in South Kordofan (Meiram area) or in the northern part of Abyei, already ceded to the NCP by the 2009 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling. They include those of Abdel Bagi Ayii Akol Agany, a tribal chief-turned-warlord from North Bahr el Ghazal; General George Athor Deng, now warlord-in-chief; and Gen. Peter Gadet (Gatdet) Yaka, absorbed into the SPLA in 2006 but now again on the rampage.

The NCP is not about to stop sponsoring militias in the South. If it is to supply its proxies, including the Missiriya militias, it cannot afford to lose either Abyei or South Kordofan (AC Vol 52 No 9). It could live with the SPLM/SPLA controlling large swathes of the Nuba Mountains before the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, since the rugged hills are discrete and isolated. The Sudan savannah plains of the rest of Southern Kordofan are a different matter: they have long been the home of mechanised ‘strip farming’ by townsmen from further north. These plains are now politically and militarily critical to Khartoum’s attempts to retain Abyei and to its intervention in the South. (“Indicted war criminal fights election,” Africa Confidential, May 13, 2011)

Not to understand this critical political context, and to see how that context has defined the South Kordofan election, is deeply irresponsible. For in the absence of other international observers, the Carter Center report is the only assessment being reported by wire services and other news outlets. Despite its acuity, the Africa Confidential assessment will be read by far too few to change the story line. The Carter Center has done a significant disservice to the people of Sudan, and South Kordofan in particular, by prematurely validating the results of the recent election without answering the questions raised by their own findings, in particular the failure to use the official spreadsheet designated for elections results, and designed to catch “anomalous results.” The SPLM did in fact complain about “non-reconciled results,” but got nowhere.

Even more importantly, the Carter Center needs to speak explicitly to the question raised by a critical finding of Africa Confidential: “The [State Election] Commission’s head, Adam Abdin, sought refuge with the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS).” If such refuge was sought, we need to know why—and we need to know how it is related to the ominous presence in Kadugli of Nafi’e Ali Nafi’e, the most powerful of al-Bashir’s presidential advisors. That the Carter Center Report does not mention Adam Abdin or this incident is a sign of its fundamental shortsightedness.

APPENDIX 1:

Indicted war criminal fights election
Africa Confidential, May 13, 2011
http://www.africa-confidential.com/article-preview/id/3977/No-Title
Khartoum’s ruling party tries to hold on to its base in Kordofan, a springboard for operations in Abyei and the South

It was clear that Ahmed Mohamed Haroun had lost his bid to be elected Governor of Southern Kordofan when the National Congress Party sent Presidential Assistant Nafi’e Ali Nafi’e to Kadugli on 8 May, the day the results were supposed to be announced. Nafi’e, a former chief of security for whom Ahmed Haroun once worked, told the State Election Commission to declare him winner, say opposition sources. The Commission’s head, Adam Abdin, sought refuge with the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS). The results were rescheduled for 10 May and again delayed, as NCP operatives scrambled to produce new figures. Their methods included the invention of new polling stations: when challenged, the officials replied that voters had found it difficult to reach the other stations, a tactic used last year in Darfur.

Initial figures obtained by Africa Confidential showed Governor Ahmed’s Deputy, Abdel Aziz Adam el Hilu of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, ahead by about 11,000 votes. His final lead was around 4,000, said an SPLM source on 11 May, claiming that the difference was largely due to NCP rigging. In elections for the South Kordofan State Assembly, the NCP had won 22 seats, the SPLM, 10, he said. The 40% of seats reserved for women and political parties were still being counted and some predict a hung parliament. The SPLM says privately that it accepts a degree of NCP malpractice but will not back down on the gubernatorial election. Some in the SPLM believe it can become a major party in Northern Sudan.

The National Election Commission said that the preliminary results could not be changed and the NCP slammed the SPLM ‘adolescent mentality’ for protesting. Northern opposition parties accused the NCP of fraud. The SPLM had been able to reduce fraud by training thousands of party observers to cover the vast territory which includes the Nuba Mountains (SPLM heartland) and the Missiriya Arab lands to their west and east. Yet the elections, delayed from last year after the SPLM challenged the census figures, benefited from few external monitors, the only widespread and systematic presence being that of the Carter Center.

This looks like another mistake. The polls are crucial for several reasons. South Kordofan is the military backyard for Abyei (which has a special status within the state) and for Upper Nile, Northern Bahr el Ghazal and Unity states in the South, all of which it adjoins. ‘We are especially concerned about the alarming situation in Abyei’, said a 10 May statement by the Troika Britain, Norway, United States. It called on the parties to ‘work together’ to tackle the ‘rising tensions’ in South Kordofan. As ever, it treated both parties even-handedly. The problem with that is obvious in Abyei, where the NCP has persistently reneged on agreements it has signed, exploiting international ‘neutrality’ to shift the situation to its advantage.

The NCP is not about to stop sponsoring militias in the South. If it is to supply its proxies, including the Missiriya militias, it cannot afford to lose either Abyei or South Kordofan (Africa Confidential, Vol. 52 No. 9). It could live with the SPLM/SPLA controlling large swathes of the Nuba Mountains before the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, since the rugged hills are discrete and isolated. The Sudan savannah plains of the rest of Southern Kordofan are a different
matter: they have long been the home of mechanised ‘strip farming’ by townsmen from further north. These plains are now politically and militarily critical to Khartoum’s attempts to retain Abyei and to its intervention in the South.

By getting Ahmed Mohamed Haroun elected, the NCP also hoped to ‘cleanse
its crimes in Darfur’, said an SPLM official: the former junior Interior Minister is wanted by the International Criminal Court on 51 counts of war crimes or crimes against humanity. The crimes have continued in Abyei.

APPENDIX 2:

A range of Sudanese political, academic and other voices have made their views of the South Kordofan election known. For its part, the SPLM has been quite specific in its claims about vote rigging, none of which is discussed in the CCR:

[1] “Vote-counting was supposed to proceed immediately after the polls closed, but the north Sudan sector of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which controls South Sudan, on Wednesday said it objects to the beginning of counting. The SPLM said in a press release that the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in north Sudan had a three-phase plan to rig the elections. It claimed that its members had found three rigged ballot boxes in the areas of Kadugli, Buram and Al-Quzair. On Tuesday, the SPLM claimed that three ballot boxes were seized in the area of Um-Battah in the state’s capital Kadugli. It also said that one polling station was relocated from the police club to Al-Merikh in Al-Bananusa in the geographical constituency number 7 without prior notice.” (Sudan Tribune, May 4, 2011)

[2] “the NCP [National Congress Party] rigged the gubernatorial elections in Southern Kurdufan [central Sudan] in favour of its candidate, Ahmad Harun. Dr Haydar Ibrahim Ali said on Monday [16 May] from Cairo that the NCP motive is to shield Harun from being arrested by the International Criminal Court [ICC].

[Ibrahim]: “The nomination of Harun specifically, was an attempt by the regime to do an action similar to what we can call money laundering. They wanted in one way or another to acquit Harun from the charges against him by the ICC. Therefore, the NCP has caught two birds without throwing a stone, rigging the elections for the second time, making the rigging exercise as part of Sudanese political life, and the third thing is jumping over the ICC charges.” (Text of report in English by independent, Nairobi-based, USAID-funded Sudan Radio Service, 16 May 2011 [Cairo])

[3] “A coalition of the national opposition parties in Sudan says they have doubts in the credibility of the Southern Kurdufan (central Sudan) elections. The coalition’s spokesperson, Faruq Abu-Issa claims that the gubernatorial elections were rigged and warns of potential violence.”

[Abu-Issa]: “This area has suffered a lot; it is a very sensitive area which includes Abyei, terrible ethnical conflicts and the intermingling areas between south and north. Even the rigged election results itself, have shown that the SPLM [Sudan People’s Liberation Movement] has strong presence in the region. Therefore, if we intend to let only one party to govern this region despite its known circumstances, and exclusion of the other party, that will continuously make the area encounter catastrophic consequences.”

[4] Notably, al-Jazeera reported on results two days after the voting was completed:

“Early results from the gubernatorial race in South Kordofan revealed a comfortable lead for the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) candidate Abdel-Aziz Al-Hilu, news channel Al-Jazeera reported. Al-Hilu is running against the incumbent governor Ahmed Haroun who is the National Congress Party (NCP) nominee and also one of the suspects wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his alleged role in Darfur war crimes when he was Sudan’s minister for interior. Al-Jazeera said the figures it obtained showed that the SPLM’s candidate is ahead by 14,000 votes after counting all but results from six polling stations. It did not say whether the remaining centers would be a game changer. (Sudan Tribune, May 6, 2011)