Sudan census postponed until end of year 2009

April 12, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan's census has been postponed until end-year because the forms had no questions on religion and ethnicity and to allow millions of southern Sudanese to return home, a southern minister said on Saturday.

The census, due to be held from April 15 to 30, was agreed under a 2005 north-south peace deal which ended Africa's longest civil war. It will help decide power- and wealth-sharing and set constituencies for the first democratic elections in 23 years.

"It was postponed," South Sudanese Information Minister Gabriel Changson Chang told Reuters from Juba. "There is a sizeable number of southern Sudanese in northern Sudan and if they are not transported to the south before the census it will ... affect the wealth sharing."

Questions on ethnicity and religion were not included in the census questionnaire, contrary to the semi-autonomous southern government's wishes, and the north-south border has still not been demarcated, he added.

Chang said the census had been postponed to the end of the year. The rainy season begins in May and much of Sudan will be out of reach by road until October.

The former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) signed the 2005 accord with the northern National Congress Party (NCP) but the road to peace has not been smooth.

NCP officials were not immediately available to comment.

The SPLM withdrew from the national coalition government last year in protest at the NCP's foot-dragging on issues such as the census and changing laws to reflect democratic progress.

Since then mutual distrust has increased and little progress has been made on topics like the status of central oil-rich Abyei, claimed by both sides. The north-south border crosses oilfields producing some 500,000 barrels per day of crude.

The delay in the census puts time pressure on elections due next year, said one diplomatic source. The elections law is still in dispute and laws governing control of state media and the role of the police and national security services have yet to be passed.

(Reuters)