2015 Elections AN ORGANIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVE TOP SECRET Top Secret – 2015 National Congress Party Elections Strategy In the Name of God the Merciful An Organizational Perspective In mid-2015, Sudan will be approaching free and democratic elections (presidential, parliamentary, executive-gubernatorial) amid difficult regional and international circumstances. Because of the seriousness of the approaching elections and what might follow in possible negative consequences to the country, the NCP and the Islamic Movement, we think the strategic vision should be (the implementation of the fourth phase of Salvation through administering all the components of elections and enabling ‘the NCP state’ through ballot boxes). As for the message, it is summarized as follows: Strengthening the build-up of the strong, orderly National Congress Party according to an institutionalized basis, capable of withstanding the burden of democratic progress with all its constituents of awareness, democratic culture and freedoms; and to be both sophisticated and flexible, adaptable to the context, capable of mass mobilization and skilled in the technicalities of the election process. Situation Analysis We can discuss the mechanisms of the upcoming period through the following perspectives: The pre-registration period The registration period The voting period First: The pre-registration period In this phase, and since the split in the ranks of the NCP that took place in December 1999, the party entered a new phase in which most of its members were focusing on conducting the affairs of the state, leaving a minority who took sides and initiated a new party (The Popular Congress Party). This split contributed to many unsatisfactory disadvantages in reality, which we are living through now, and that can be summarized as follows: The weakness in the relationship between the country’s leadership and the party members at the rank and file level. It might be seen in the lack of attention of rank and file members towards many of the major roles of the leadership in the country and the purposes for which it was initiated. This led to a sort of abstention in public affairs, at least in comparison to what was the case at the beginning of the Salvation. The weakness in structures of the NCP (the National Congress Party), the Islamic Movement (the internal organic structure) and the People’s Committees in which the majority of members are from the NCP. Hence, the structural, educational and social systems have weakened to the point where they are now empty with nothing to show for the work, despite scattered efforts to energize them. 1 Top Secret – 2015 National Congress Party Elections Strategy The weak political awareness among some members, demonstrated by the lack of care to vote and continue the election process – whether within the totalitarian regime before 2010 to support its direction and to enhance its legitimacy-or within the pluralistic regime post the 2010 elections, in order to give preference for this regime over others and to enable it to rule. The lack of capabilities [mainly financial], which led to the failure of many programs and limited the activities of activists either organizationally, or in terms of advocacy, and in turn, this contributed to the isolation of rank and file members in terms of following up with and connecting to their leadership. The limited number of meetings with the members and hence limited political, intellectual or organizational briefings – tying the membership with the leadership, motivating members to support and inform the leadership, so as to expand the base of those defending NCP perspectives and programs. The marginalization of many of the genuine organizational leaders and employing others less competent, against the will of the membership. Hence the growth of cliques and depression among members, and the sluggishness of their ability and the restraint of their participation. The lack of training to enable members in organizational, advocacy and technical work – required to keep up with the qualitative shifts and the substantial changes in building the modern state of Sudan and to this end providing the prerequisites of empowerment [of NCP]. Second: The Registration Period This is an important phase and [represents] the computerized preparedness for the crucial stage of the election process. The organizational problems can be summarized as follows: We notice over the previous years of the Salvation, especially during the period of transformation from the revolutionary legitimacy to the constitutional legitimacy, a severe weakness in members’ interest in the registration process, which in turn led to a failure in mobilization of others to register, even despite the fact that the registration process was door-to-door. This weakness of interest in registration mentioned above led to an upheaval in the procedures of the registration process, which governs the validity of the polling process. This weakness forced us to undertake exceptional measures that led to those shortcomings that affected the legitimacy of the elections and weakened its weight in the eyes of the audience. We mention a few of these shortcomings: a) The acceptance of the lists of registered names even including absentees, a registration process overall that might have had many errors; even including those who did not have the desire to vote at all. b) Registering the names from ration cards including youth and seniors in addition to fictitious names added by families for the purpose of sugar distribution at the time. c) In addition, we were forced to re-open registration even during the voting to add those who fell through the system – this led to a substantial increase in the number of those registered, which affected the overall electoral turnout and led to others attempting to manipulate this. 2 Top Secret – 2015 National Congress Party Elections Strategy The [NCP] organization dependence on People’s Committees to register names without them having a clear administrative role for follow up or to organize their functions. Furthermore, the lack of state motivation to provide the needed support [to these People’s Committees], which led to all the transgressions mentioned above because the People’s Committees did not show the necessary attention to the registration process nor to the later elections. The organization did not employ its varied fronts - though numerous - in order to contribute to the registration process through a kind of mission based approach to mobilize people in all of the stages so that the elections would succeed. This was despite the fact that elections during all its phases was considered a strategic issue targeted to mobilize people for this phase (the constitutional legitimacy phase) via winning the hearts of the people and ensuring the continuation of perceived State influence. This [lack of mobilization] contributed to destabilizing the image of State influence. Third: The Election Process All the above-mentioned shortcomings greatly contributed to the lack of expected election achievements whether legislative councils or presidential, hence we summarize the problems as follows: The absence of a civilization [sic] and planning dimension of the elections, which completely emptied the elections of their contents and they became a form without substance. Many people did not know what was going on and maybe had never even heard of the elections until its end, as demonstrated by the weakness of participation. In addition, the elections did not interest any of the organizers, as there is no other reason to explain why most of the organizers, including some leaders, did not participate in voting. The absence of serious tactical mobilization for the elections (media and public) did not allow sufficient time to win over the public and create incentive to participate, even to a minimal degree or even just to care about the event. This led to the necessity for the election committees to move from door to door with the ballot boxes at some stages. The weakened competition as the NCP leaders were not enthusiastic to create any type of competition whether political, tribal or factional. This led to many of the Party candidates to be elected by default, which led to a complete reluctance in political participation from others [whether voters or candidates]. In addition, none of the Party or organizational circles made any effort to save face in this regard, but instead the matter was left until it further contributed to loss of prestige. Fourth: The Challenges Activating structures and fronts at all levels , and mobilizing them to enter the fourth phase of the rule of the Salvation through the ballot box as a new phase of “Greater Empowerment”; or alternatively stopping the progress made until now leading to a return to secularism and cutting religion out of the reality of life. Defining the nature of the period - that is the promotion of freedoms and the peaceful transfer of power and related organizational and institutional work. 3 Top Secret – 2015 National Congress Party Elections Strategy Building a central countrywide database, capable of providing data as soon as possible and with extreme accuracy, with caution to classify the registry to the defined levels (loyalists, deniers, opponents, or the silent, abstainers or neutral etc.). Modernizing all organizational work and avoiding any sort of setback; in other words computerizing all aspects of organizational work. Fifth: Chances of Success National, regional and local interest in the coming phase as well as the intensified pressure in the direction of overturning the Salvation regime and in turn the Islamic Movement. This puts the organization in a strategic battle - addressing all of these dimensions will oblige it to work on bridging the gaps that were damaged by the careless attitude during the previous phase. The great achievements accomplished by the Salvation in oil, economy, communications and education sectors were muted, although these sectors constitute a reservoir of substantial energy to direct the dialogue and to manage the ethics of competition with others in an unparalleled manner in Sudan.