Voters in Toronto could help create a new country in the world, if only they would show up to the polls.
Sunday launched the start of the weeklong Sudanese referendum that will determine whether or not Southern Sudan will become its own country.
Eight countries have established polling stations outside Sudan, and Canada is one of them. Sudanese can vote in either Toronto or Calgary until January 15.
But out of an estimated 5000-7000 Sudanese people living in Ontario, only 921 people have registered to vote. Of those voters, only a fraction are women.
In their native Sudan, people – especially women – are more than enthusiastic about voting, flooding the polls in record numbers.
Samuel Ciengkuach, Toronto’s Referendum Centre manager, says the registration process could have gone better. “The problem was that we had minor resources, little time to inform everyone and few centres for registration.”
He said he was surprised at the gender balance in registration.
“Women were especially low in the registration process,” said Ciengkuach. “Maybe because it was harder for them to get to the centres.”
Also possibly harming the turnout are reports of an organized boycott of the referendum, which questions the fairness of the vote.
“I think that people were uneasy about the whole process, about its freeness and fairness,” said Theodora Philos, the press officer for the International Organization of Migration, the body staging the elections in Canada. “Having lived through so many promises made and broken, the Sudanese community could be skeptical of the government.”
In Toronto, more than three quarters of registered voters – some 700 – cast a ballot at York Weston Community Services Centre on the first day. In Calgary, 1,300 Sudanese registered. The total population of Sudanese in Canada is between 50,000-70,000.
The idea to have a referendum was part of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which put an end to 50 years of civil war. The agreement was signed on January 9, 2005 and is now giving the people of Sudan a chance to either unify the country or create their own.
Ciengkuach says that from what he can gather, most registered voters in Toronto are voting for independence.
Despite the low registration rate, he was pleased with the initial voters’ turnout Sunday, “I was expecting the turnout to be high, but I was not expecting it to be as high as it was.”
Community leaders play a vital role in informing the Sudanese population, and encouraging them to register and vote. Unfortunately, as Ciengkuach explained, “You cannot persuade someone who has already made up his or her mind.”
Machar Buol, a Sudanese community leader in Toronto will be voting this week and he suspects the referendum will end with the separation of Sudan, “The history of Sudan shows that Southern Sudan was never treated with equality, [we] never received all the same privileges from the government of the country,” he said.
Buol, who is originally from Bor, in the Jonglei State of Sudan, came to Canada in August 2005. He is now active in the Sudanese community and is among a group of Sudanese who fled their country during the civil war. He feels that Southern Sudan deserves the opportunity to become its own nation, “Now, Southern Sudan can justify independence, they can determine how they will do without the past government. They can be on their own.”
