An amicable Sudan divorce?

An amicable Sudan divorce?

In some of most strategic intersections of Sudan's capital Khartoum, there are huge campaign billboards with the picture of President Omar al-Bashir, and beside him, two wedding rings.

One is black and one is white and they are held together by a ribbon with the colours of Sudan's national flag.

The black ring symbolises the country's south, mainly inhabited by black African tribes, while the white one represents the mainly Arab north.

It's a message the incumbent president wants no one to miss, one he continually hyped up during a vigorous and well organised campaign that took him to most parts of the country: that he will keep the country united at whatever cost.

But unity is what seems to elude Sudan by the day.

The elections are a key component of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that was signed in Kenya in 2005 and brought the war two between the south and north to an end.

Intended to set Sudan on the path to democracy and make unity more attractive to the people of the south, the polls seem to be going against the very intentions for which they were included in the peace deal.
 
Deeply divided

And so on Sunday Sudan goes to the polls a deeply divided nation.

The ruling National Congress party looks set to romp back to power in the wake of an opposition boycott that challenges the credibility of the first multiparty elections in 24 years.

These are polls fraught with challenges and left in turmoil by partial boycotts by a number of opposition parties.

Fearing that their participation in the election would simply bestow legitimacy on a regime accused of conspiring to rig the results, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), south Sudan's ruling party and partner in the national coalition, announced a selective boycott.

Some of the north's major opposition parties are partially boycotting the polls too.

Clear message

It is, however, SPLM's boycott of the polls that has raised eyebrows the most.

Salva Kiir, the SPLM leader and Sudan's vice-president, declined to run against Bashir and also withdrew his party's candidate for the national presidency, Yasir Arman, at the last minute, signalling his preference for secession in a referendum planned next year.

The party also withdrew its parliamentary candidates for constituencies in all but two regions of the north.
 
Five years of a power sharing agreement have no doubt left al-Bashir's National Congress party (NCP) and the SPLM distrustful of each other. 

SPLM's boycott is also seen as a reaffirmation that the divisions between the largely Muslim north and the mainly Christian and animist south appear unbridgeable.

More than 2 million people died in the war and the bad blood and suspicions run deep.
 
Bitter pill

Al-Bashir has publicly stated that he would accept secession.

"If the result of the referendum is separation, the Khartoum government will be the first to recognise this decision. We will support the newborn government in the south," he said in January while addressing a public meeting in the south.

Many doubt he is sincere, however.

Division will be a bitter pill for him to swallow.

Most of Sudan's oil is in the south and he would not want to be seen as the man under whose watch Sudan got divided with the possibility of follow-on Balkanization looming large.

South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, in particular, are a grave concern as both have previously fought alongside the south.

But after five years of cohabitation that followed the two decades of war, it's now increasingly apparent that south Sudan will not accept al-Bashir's hand in marriage.

The big question is, is an amicable breakup possible?