South Sudan vote show 99pc want independence

By David Ochami

With almost all votes counted, provisional results indicate close to 99 per cent of the people of South Sudan have voted to secede from the north with the highest separatist vote coming from Lakes State.

South Sudan has ten states including Lakes, which experienced pre-referendum gun violence leading to the killing of ten people. The referendum between January 9 and 15 was conducted in the ten states, Sudan’s North, including the capital Khartoum and war-torn Darfur and in eight other countries across the world.

Kenya with the largest Diaspora vote at 16,063 returned a vote of 99.2 per cent in favour of separation.

At the start of the vote, South Sudan Referendum Bureau chairman, Justice Chan Reec Madut, said counting would be through by January 31.

Justice Chan is also deputy chairman of the South Sudan Referendum Commission (SSRC).

Now, provisional results on the SSRC’s website indicate the desire for separation is no longer in doubt.

But the SSRC headquarters in Khartoum has reported that a majority of South Sudanese in South Darfur support unity after casting 59.43 per cent for unity against 34.59 per cent in support of secession.

Chose secession

From the results, about 99.6 per cent of voters chose secession with 98.7 per cent ballots counted.

The website shows that 3,793,572 votes were cast and 3,779,572 considered valid, while 6,194 were returned blank and 8,268 declared invalid.

The report, last updated on Saturday evening, shows all of the estimated 60,000 Diaspora vote has been counted and 98.7 per cent of the Southern ballots tallied leading to the staggering endorsement of the world’s soon to be declared newest country.

The highest pro-secession vote was in Lakes where provisional results indicate almost 100 per cent vote for separation. Here, 298,216 votes were cast for secession against 227 in favour of unity.

In the Diaspora 57,048 voted for secession against 841.