Sudanese state media reported on Saturday that the President of South Sudan Salva Kiir has reappointed his deputy Riek Machar.  This is a major political step ahead of the forthcoming referendum through which the people will decide whether or not to break away from the Bashir-led North.  Southern Sudan won semi-autonomous government under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement [CPA] that ended more than two decades of bitter civil war with the north.

Mr Kiir won overwhelmingly in the April election to stay on as president of South Sudan.  He is now expected to name the rest of his new cabinet in the next few days, seven months before the referendum scheduled for January 2011. Further north, President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir is also expected to announce the country’s national coalition government soon.  President Bashir said the key Ministry of Energy and Mining would be led by a member of Mr Kiir’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement [SPLM]; a move that might strengthen the “No” campaigners in the referendum.

While most analysts agree that the proponents of the “Yes” campaign will carry the day in the referendum, they also acknowledge that Southern Sudan still faces major challenges. The people in the South are still buried in abject poverty, food security is still a major problem, and the new government will have to deal with rebellions from at least three militia leaders who bitterly dispute the outcome of the last election.  In fact, Sudan’s army reported that fighters who are loyal to David Yauyau on Thursday kidnapped four government guards in Boma wildlife park near the country’s border with Ethiopia.