By embarking only on a partial boycott (withdrawing its presidential candidate and pulling out of regional elections in Darfur only), the SPLM is playing a two-level game. On one level, it hedges its Darfurian support by declaring solidarity with the position of insurgents there. A fair election is impossible amidst prevailing political roadblocks. Withdrawal of European election monitors from the region this week was a belated acknowledgement by the EU of this sad reality. At another level, SPLM's partial boycott stops short of the outright provocation that would hand Al-Bashir and his supporters an excuse to complicate the south's independence bid.
The US, like the EU, wants the elections to go ahead. But Washington's Sudan strategy is even more dependent on the NCP-SPLM accommodation. America has invested huge political capital in the North-South agreement, and sees the conduct of this month's elections as central to actualising the CPA. The US tolerates a narrow elite accommodation in the hope that it gives South Sudan a final say on its own future and helps transform the drawn-out North-South conflict. It is a seductive but deeply flawed strategy in view of numerous unresolved questions, many of them vital to a successful southern referendum: internal border demarcation and oil revenue allocations, tensions over Abyei, South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, and continuing borderland conflicts fuelled by Al-Bashir's ethnic militarisation strategies.
A policy based solely on support for elitist deals carries significant risks. First, it will leave many key Sudanese players on the sidelines – including powerful northern oppositions like the Umma party of former Prime Minister Sadiq Al-Mahdi, which has opted to boycott. Second, elite accommodation on the elections confers Al-Bashir with a veneer of legitimacy, however tenuous, and could be ultimately self-defeating for Western and African efforts to broker a solution in Darfur. A one-sided election this year and possible southern secession next year, invariably strengthens the NCP's control over Sudan's north, making negotiated settlements difficult in Darfur and other restive peripheries.
Encouraging a more inclusive political dialogue will not be easy, but significant EU aid largesse should provide some leverage. If there is no change from the elitist approach, Sudan's still existent opportunity to transform itself would be permanently lost. In that case, it will be at a cost to Sudan's peoples and many far beyond the epicentres of its instabilities."
http://www.euractiv.com/fr/affaires-...phe-au-soudan-

He just said it much better than me and resumes most of the key points why stabilization/post conflict recovery missions fail.