Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said on Sunday that the country's north will reinforce its Islamic law after a referendum expected to grant independence to the south. "If South Sudan secedes, we'll change the constitution.
There will be no question of cultural or ethnic diversity. Sharia will be the only source of the constitution, and Arabic the only official language," Bashir said in a speech aired on national television. Southerners are set to vote in a referendum on January 9 on whether to remain united with the north or break away and form their own country.
The vote is a key plank of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south that put an end to more than two decades of civil war.
Analysts are predicting that the southerners will opt for independence, and senior officials in Khartoum are even beginning to get used to the idea of the split. An aide to Bashir admitted on Thursday that south Sudan would probably choose secession because efforts aimed at promoting unity had failed.
"Despite our work for unity, we should not deceive ourselves or cling to dreams. We should rely on the facts on the ground," the official SUNA news agency quoted Nafie Ali Nafie as saying.
"After the secession of the south, we could see the north radicalise and the creation of a Muslim caliphate," one foreign official said on condition of anonymity.
After the conflict, Bashir's National Congress Party (NCP) and the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) agreed on an interim constitution valid until July 2011.
The constitution recognises the "multi-ethnic," "multi-cultural" and "multi-faith" status of the Sudanese state, and is based on both sharia, or Islamic law, and the "consensus" of the population.
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