The Sudan at the Polls
Towards the end of next week the results of the Sudan elections should begin to come in. It will have been a strange exercise in democracy, with British District Officers explaining the secret ballot, and Egyptians carrying fair promises up the Nile on steamers. The voters themselves have varied from the literate, politically conscious North, whose fathers experienced the rule of both Egypt and the Mandi, to the tribesmen of the Upper Nile who have known neither in the past, but who, by putting the symbol for an elephant or a palm tree in a box, have helped to choose between them in the future. When the votes have been counted, what then ? The Sudan will have decided whether the National Unionist Party, which is nomi- nally pro-Egyptian, or the Umma Party, which is for indepen- dence, will be in the majority in the Constitutional Assembly which is to decide within three years whether the Sudan shall link itself to Egypt or be independent. That the division -between the parties is by no means as clear and simple as the alternatives before the Assembly is argued in an article on a later page of this issue. In other words, when the result of the elections is known the future of the Sudan may remain an _open—and agitated—question. What will have been closed, for ever, is the question of the Sudan's right to self-determina- tion. This is why, so far as the Sudan is concerned, the charges being flung between Britain and Egypt are relatively unimportant. The elections are taking place under the terms laid down in the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of February 17th. The electoral commission (three Sudanese, one British, one American, one Egyptian, one Indian) was appointed under the same agreement to supervise them. That Commigsion has refuted Egyptian charges of British interference. It has not commented, and has not been asked to comment, on British charges of Egyptian interference. There is nothing known about Egyptians to suggest that these charges are false. But false or true, the elections will be valid and the• Sudan will have 'chosen the majority which is to decide its future.
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