This article explores the history of elections by secret ballot in Sudan since the 1950s, and considers what lessons this history may offer in the run-up to the national elections planned under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The article locates the repeated use of the secret ballot in Sudan in the context of a wider state-directed project of modernity, for which the secret ballot offers a performative enactment of the relationship between an efficient state and…
Entries by Justin Willis
This report examines Sudan’s considerable history of elections, and asks why, despite the apparent success of 1953, multi-party elections have not so far produced the kind of stable yet dynamic government in Sudan that the secret ballot is intended to encourage. The report argues that failures of government should not be construed as evidence of any fundamental unsuitability of elections to Sudanese circumstances.