Low Voter Registration Turnout in South Sudan Trigger Extension Calls

By James Gatdet Dak
November 6, 2009 (JUBA) – Southern Sudan is hit by very low voters’ registration turnout as the region prepares for its first post-war general elections due in six months.

Voters’ registration for the Sudan’s April 2010 elections began on November 1 all over the country and set to end on November 30. Officials of the semi-autonomous region say some of the registration centers in Southern Sudan have remained almost empty for the last one week while others with the maximum of less than a hundred voters to register per day as the turnout has been very low.

Even in the capital, Juba, turnout has been very low with daily average of only 30 people according to registration team leaders.
David Lukudu, a team leader at Naira Secondary School registration center revealed that his team had been registering an average of 15 people per day. Other centers reveal that for the last one week they have managed to register only 200 to 300 people, respectively.
The Council of Ministers has resolved to request for 30 days extension of the registration exercise to try to mobilize and register a good number of voters, says the minister of Information and Broadcasting, Paul Mayom Akech.

“Voters’ registration is not going on as desired generally in Southern Sudan. There is practically difficulty,” said the official spokesperson.
In the Friday’s Council of Ministers meeting chaired by President Salva Kiir Mayardit, the cabinet discussed the seriousness of the matter by identifying some of the main challenges and taking a number of measures to try to remedy the situation.

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