Spot gold rose 1.02 percent to $1,731.00 an ounce by
1430 GMT, having earlier jumped to $1,732.10. U.S. gold
gained 0.97 percent to $1,731.40.

Spot silver rose 2.42 percent to $32.99 an ounce.

“We’ve seen oil prices head higher on the unrest in the
Middle East and I think that is leading to some worries, even
though there is a general day of ‘risk on’ with equities being
up,” said Christin Tuxen, analyst at Danske Bank.

The dollar index fell from a two-month high hit on
Friday, making commodities priced in the greenback more
affordable for buyers holding other currencies.

World stock markets and commodities rose on Monday,
recovering some of their sharp losses last week, on signs of
progress in talks to resolve the fiscal crunch in the United
States.

Eugen Weinberg, global head of commodities research at
Germany’s Commerzbank, said gold’s one percent rise as the
dollar softened was linked to increased risk appetite for the
precious metal rather than its appeal as a safe haven.

However, some analysts saw the increasing conflict in the
Gaza Strip triggering buying in precious metals.

“We still have some fairly important tensions in that part
of the world, hence there is a demand for safe havens, such as
gold,” Tuxen said.

Worries over the unresolved euro zone debt crisis, and the
continuing talks to resolve the “fiscal cliff”, supported gold.

The gold market’s attention is largely focused on the budget
talks between U.S. President Barack Obama and Congressional
leaders.

Gold’s safe haven status would shine in the case of failed
talks and political paralysis, while success in avoiding the
fiscal disaster may dampen sentiment in gold, analysts said.

U.S. lawmakers expressed confidence on Sunday that they
could reach a deal to avert the $600 billion “fiscal cliff”,
which threatened to send the giant economy back into recession.

The discussions between the two parties are unlikely to go
smoothly, which would potentially benefit gold.

Ole Hansen, vice president of Saxo Bank, said that once the
fiscal crunch is resolved, the underlying interest rate
environment was likely to remain low for some time, potentially
supporting gold prices.

“If the parties in the U.S. reach agreement, that would
remove uncertainty and gold’s safe haven status. But the low
interest rate environment is not going to go away,” he said.

Low interest rates increase inflationary fears, and can
support gold which is often seen as a hedge against inflation.

Traders will be looking for any clues of the Federal
Reserve’s future intentions when chairman Ben Bernanke speaks at
the Economic Club of New York on Tuesday.

MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT

Referring to the violence in the Middle East, Peter Fertig,
a consultant at Quantitative Commodity Research, said: “The
situation in the Middle East could be supportive for precious
metals. The situation is supportive for the price of crude and
precious metals often rise with higher crude prices.”

Israel bombed dozens of suspected militant sites in the
Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Monday and Palestinians kept up their
cross-border rocket fire as international pressure for a truce
intensified.

Reuters market analyst Wang Tao expected spot gold to rise
to a resistance zone of $1,734 to $1,738 an ounce during the
day, driven by an upward wave c.

HOLDINGS OF SPDR GOLD UP

Holdings of the largest gold-backed exchange-traded-fund
(ETF), New York’s SPDR Gold Trust GLD rose 0.22 percent on
Friday from Thursday, while those of the largest silver-backed
ETF, New York’s iShares Silver Trust SLV, fell 0.45 percent for
the same period.

Speculators raised their net long bets in U.S. gold in the
week ended Nov. 13 from the lowest level in about three months
hit a week earlier, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading
Commission said.

Net long positions in U.S. silver edged up to 27,802
contracts from 27,350 contracts a week earlier, their lowest
since late August.

Platinum rose 1.40 percent to $1,575.75, while sister
metal palladium was last at $638.75, up 1.87 percent.

Spot gold rose 0.59 percent to $1,723.6 an ounce by
1127 GMT. U.S. gold gained half a percent to $1,723.70.

“The fact that we are holding above the $1,700 level is
giving investors the kick to get back into gold,” said Saxo Bank
vice president Ole Hansen.

The dollar index eased from a two-month high hit on
Friday, making commodities priced in the greenback more
affordable for buyers holding other currencies.

Hansen said the rising conflict between Israel and the Gaza
Strip, worries over the unresolved euro zone debt crisis, and
the continuing talks to resolve the fiscal cliff, underpinned
gold.

The gold market’s attention is largely focused on the budget
talks between U.S. President Barack Obama and Congressional
leaders.

Gold’s safe haven status would shine in the case of failed
talks and political paralysis, while success in avoiding the
fiscal disaster may dampen sentiment in gold, analysts said.

Share markets worldwide rebounded from last week’s sharp
selloff on Monday, with investors encouraged by signs of
progress in talks to resolve the fiscal crunch in the United
States.

U.S. lawmakers expressed confidence on Sunday that they
could reach a deal to avert the $600 billion “fiscal cliff”,
which threatened to send the giant economy back into recession.

The discussions between the two parties are unlikely go
smoothly, which would potentially benefit gold.

Hansen said that once the fiscal crunch is resolved, the
underlying interest rate environment was likely to remain low
for some time, potentially supporting gold prices.

“If the parties in the U.S. reach agreement, that would
remove uncertainty and gold’s safe haven status. But the low
interest rate environment is not going to go away,” he said.

Low interest rates increase inflationary fears, and can
support gold which is often seen as a hedge against inflation.

MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT

Referring to the weekend violence in the Middle East, Peter
Fertig, consultant with Quantitative Commodity Research, said,
“The situation in the Middle East could be supportive for
precious metals. The situation is supportive for the price of
crude and precious metals often rise with higher crude prices.”

Israel bombed dozens of suspected militant sites in the
Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Monday and Palestinians kept up their
cross-border rocket fire as international pressure for a truce
intensified.

Reuters market analyst Wang Tao expected spot gold to rise
to a resistance zone of $1,734 to $1,738 an ounce during the
day, driven by an upward wave c.

HOLDINGS OF SPDR GOLD UP

Holdings of the largest gold-backed exchange-traded-fund
(ETF), New York’s SPDR Gold Trust GLD rose 0.22 percent on
Friday from Thursday, while those of the largest silver-backed
ETF, New York’s iShares Silver Trust SLV fell 0.45 percent for
the same period.

Speculators raised their net long bets in U.S. gold in the
week ended Nov. 13 from the lowest level in about three months
hit a week earlier, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading
Commission said.

Net long positions in U.S. silver edged up to 27,802
contracts from 27,350 contracts a week earlier, their lowest
since late August.

Platinum rose 0.39 percent to $1,560.00, while sister
metal palladium was last at $630.90, up 0.62 percent.

Spot silver rose 1.4 percent to $32.66 an ounce.

It was an engagement party thrown by a beaming, white-robed Khartoum patriarch with pulsing music provided by Orupaap, a group of mostly southern musicians and dancers.

The band was barely into its third song when the northern, southern and foreign guests swarmed on to the stage raising their arms and clicking their fingers in one of the few African dances easily mastered by awkward middle class Englishmen.

“Where is the band from,” I shouted at the host above the amplified music. “I think the musicians are Shilluk,” he replied, referring to a group with its heartlands around the southern city of Malakal. “They’re from here in Khartoum.”

Northerners and southerners have lived and fought and traded together for centuries — and over the last five and a half years they have been experimenting with an even closer form of cohabitation.

In 2005 they ended decades of civil war and signed a peace deal that set up a joint north-south government.

Southerners moved up to Khartoum to take up government positions and politicians made speeches about making unity “attractive” to both sides.

But behind the scenes — and sometimes way out in the open — northern and southern leaders bickered and stalled at every stage of tortured negotiations over the details of the peace deal.

Speeches and joint cultural events were easy. The actual business of living together and forgetting the centuries of bad blood proved too difficult.

The same night as the engagement celebration, the first results were emerging from a referendum on southern independence — a vote that was supposed to cement the peace deal and a revived enthusiasm for Sudanese unity. Instead, the people of Malakal, and all other southern regions, came out 99 percent for separation.

Back at the party, you had to force yourself to remember that this was not a typical night out in Khartoum. It was a glorious one-off, thrown to celebrate the engagement of two English people with friends from across Sudan’s wide cultural ranges.

The band, according to its website, was linked to a Roman Catholic aid group but adapted itself to Islamic sensibilities. When the guests were invited to join in for a second time, the band’s male dancers only pulled male guests up on to the stage and the female dancers targeted the women.

One Darfuri guest quietly presented the bride-to-be with a necklace from the region’s Fur tribe — a sign that she was “seriously engaged” — while the bridegroom-to-be got a metal pendant, traditionally worn on the forehead but adapted for the evening into a kind of corsage.

Miles away, the Darfur conflict rumbled on and further away still, southerners counted the days until they could declare themselves an independent nation.

Eleven p.m. came — the time when, according to Khartoum city regulations, all public music has to stop — and the band packed up its instruments and left.

“If we have to drive our people to paradise with sticks we will do so for their own good and the good of those who come after us,” he infamously said.

Something similar must have been going through the minds of mediators in recent weeks as they tried to push for an agreement between Sudan’s intractable northern and southern politicians.

Sudan is now just 48 days away from the scheduled start of two referendums — the first on whether the oil-producing south should declare independence, the second on whether the disputed central Abyei region should join north or south.

Time is running out but both sides remain at loggerheads on a list of basic issues. To date, they haven’t even been able to agree on the membership of a commission to organise the Abyei vote — most privately agree it will have to be postponed or canceled.

There were signs of some progress a week ago, on the eve of the Islamic Eid al-Adha holiday, when African Union mediators said both sides reached a framework deal, at least agreeing the form of future negotiations. But politicians returned from their break this weekend, refreshed and ready to restart their war of words.

The “framework agreement” was unsigned and only in principle, they said. Both sides called press conferences accusing each other of breaking peace deals, and intimidating voters. One step forward and several steps back.

Some sort of settlement would certainly be for their own good and the good of those that come after them.

Both referendums were promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of north-south civil war. Any permanent collapse in that settlement could easily plunge both regions back to conflict. For many Sudanese already tired of years of fighting, paradise would simply be peace.

Mediators have already tried to use sticks to get them moving — Washington has repeatedly reminded Khartoum it can step up crippling trade sanctions still further in the absence of progress. They have also tried carrots — Washington, again, has promised to take Sudan off its list of state sponsors of terrorism and to ease sanctions if progress is made. So far, neither approach has produced any significant concessions.

Seasoned Sudan watchers say both sides are simply engaged in a classic bit of brinkmanship and will rush through an agreement in the days before the votes.

That has happened before on other issues but not all the precedents are promising.

Work did eventually start on Abel Alier’s development project — a canal to divert the flow of river Nile water away from the south’s vast Sudd swamp. Work stopped again when southern rebels, returning to war against the north in the 1980s, attacked the Jonglei canal’s vast digging machine leaving it stuck in its tracks.

Unfortunately, officials were not all busy putting the final touches to voting registration lists or preparing publicity materials for the region’s inexperienced electorate.

First they had to set up the office — staff, who only moved in around a week ago, bustled around rearranging furniture as they waited for deliveries of everything from computers to curtains.

Today, with just with 115 days, or 81 weekdays, to go until the plebiscite, Sudan remains startlingly unprepared for the vote, promised under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war between north and south Sudan.

The stakes are high. Analysts fear any delay, or messy outcome to the vote, could spark a return to civil war, with dire consequences for the surrounding region.

Southerners are widely expected to choose independence, and would react angrily to any perceived interference from Khartoum (bent, they say, on keeping control of the region’s oil), or any irregularities that might question the validity of the vote’s outcome.

The members of the commission, who are supposed to organise the referendum, were only appointed in late June, after months of wrangling between northern and southern leaders. The commission’s secretary general Mohamed Osman al-Nujoomi was nominated on Sept. 2, and approved by the president on Wednesday.

At the time of writing, the commission had still not announced a start date for voter registration, or a concrete plan of how it was going to reach and identify millions of voters, spread out across the underdeveloped south and around the world.

No one you ask is prepared to say it is already too late, that Sudan has no hope on meeting the deadline.

And no Sudan analysts you speak to are surprised at the delay and last minute rush. Commentators have long written about the Sudanese government’s often disastrous policy of “strategic delay” – where costly decisions are put off in the hope that other events will intervene.

The only difference this time is that Khartoum’s ever-flexible delaying tactics are coming up against the immovable force of a fixed deadline — southerners insist they will not budge a day beyond the scheduled voting date of January 9, 2011.

Optimists hoping that that vote will still take place on time can take heart from the fact that the commission at last has an office — if you can find it, that is.

There is still no sign outside the premises on an unmade road in Khartoum’s Al Taif district and the most useful landmark for giving driving directions is a hoarding at the turning for the Ona Beauty Centre.

Later in the week, the commission announced it had decided on the design of the registration forms, but not where they would be printed.

As I sat inside the new offices waiting for a briefing, a passing official broke open a packet of multi-coloured drinks coasters and handed them out, one for each new desk.

The region of southern Sudan is now less than seven months away from a referendum on whether it should split away to form Africa’s newest country.

One of the biggest unanswered questions hanging over the vote is what the new nation should call itself if, as widely expected, embittered southerners choose to secede.

The easiest option would be to stick to what people call it now — South Sudan or Southern Sudan.

But there are some serious branding issues. Say “Sudan” to most outsides and they will immediately think of a list of nasties — Darfur, the never-ending north-south civil war, military coups, militancy and crippling debt.

A new nation might be grateful for a new name with a clean slate.

Equatoria has a nice ring to it. But that would associate the entire diverse territory with just three of its current states — Western and Eastern Equatoria, together with Central Equatoria, the home of the capital Juba.

New Sudan is catchy but perhaps a little presumptuous. Old Sudan would not be happy.

Steve Bloomfield, author of the recently published “Africa United: How Football Explains Africa” has already plumped for The Nile Republic, after the White Nile that cuts through the territory and seeps through its vast Sudd swamplands.

Calling the new country the Nile Republic could instantly transform its image. It is a positive, popular brand known all around the world … The Nile Republic would also have to come up with a way of describing its citizens. The word “Nilotic” already refers to ethnic groups in Sudan, Uganda and Kenya.

Not bad. But, as Bloomfield points out, it might create a few jitters downstream in Egypt where the authorities are growing increasingly paranoid about other Nile-side countries’ efforts to take some their share of the river’s water.

Benjamin Goro Gimba on Monday threw a whole list of options into the mix in a column in the Citizen newspaper. Kush, the Nile State, the Anyidi Democratic Republic all had differing historical precedence. He wrote:

I came across an underground name for southern Sudan – Juwama. This name was derived from the first two letters of the regional capitals of Juba, Wau and Malakal … I will personally go for the Democratic Republic of Juwama.

Any other ideas? The debate has just begun.

(Photo: South Sudan President Salva Kiir casts his ballot during election in Juba, south Sudan, April 11, 2010. Reuters/Goran Tomasevic)

Preparations for Sudan’s general elections — due to start tomorrow — were thrown into confusion over the past two weeks as opposition parties issued contradictory statements over whether they were boycotting the polls.

Some announced a total withdrawal, protesting against fraud and unrest in Darfur, only to change their minds days later. Others pulled out from parts of the elections — presidential, parliamentary and gubernatorial votes are taking place at the same time — then changed their minds days later. Others left it up to individual candidates to decide.

Even a day ahead of voting in the divided oil-producing state, serious questions remain.

These confusions are more than mere technicalities.

They will hinder the ability of Sudanese voters to make clear choices when they start queuing up for their first multi-party elections in 24 years.

They could also fuel legal challenges to the results when they are finally announced later this month, stoking tensions in a country already weighed down by ethnic divisions and conflict.

Take two examples:

1) The boycotts were announced after ballot papers were printed. That means the names of all the boycotting candidates are still there on the forms, with a big fat box next to their party symbols ready for a voter’s tick.

So should people vote for them or not? Few parties have issued any instructions about what their supporters should do, or publicly endorsed other candidates.

And what happens if one of the boycotting candidates goes on to win an election? Observers say votes for boycotting candidates will still be counted as legal. One official, who asked not to be named, said it would still be possible for Sudan’s incumbent president Omar Hassan al-Bashir to be forced into a second round of voting by support for other candidates who have pulled out of the race.

Would boycotting parties really refuse to accept a victory if it was handed to them? Or would they jump in, saying they were competing all the time? One for the constitutional lawyers to argue over for years.

2) Is south Sudan’s dominant Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in or out of the race in northern Sudan?

It seemed so clear when party secretary general Pagan Amum told reporters on Tuesday: “We announce the SPLM boycott of all the elections in the north on all levels … in 13 states of the north.”

Days later, the party’s overall leader Salva Kiir announced the SPLM would be running in the north after all, with the exception of the presidential race and Darfur. “A clear contradiction, a signs of a split?” asked reporters. “Not at all”, Kiir answered. The SPLM had voted to run in the north, but left the decision on whether to follow through with that vote to the party’s northern sector, which decided to pull out.

So the SPLM is taking part in elections in northern Sudan, with the exception of its northern candidates. I hope that clears things up.

This morning, a spokesman from south Sudan’s dominant Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) called round journalists inviting them to a demonstration in Khartoum.

The grassroots members of the SPLM’s Khartoum branch, he said, would be handing over a memorandum to the party leadership calling on it to end its boycott of Sudan’s looming presidential ballot and reinstate its candidate Yasir Arman.

So far so newsworthy. The SPLM’s decision to withdraw Arman from the presidential race last week, in protest against widespread fraud, sent shockwaves through Sudan’s political scene.

Now the SPLM membership was organising a rally calling for Arman’s return. What did it all mean? A split in the party? A stage-managed event to smooth the way for Arman to change his mind and return to the political fray?

The press corps duly turned up and watched 50 to 60 people waving banners outside one of the SPLM’s Khartoum offices, dancing and chanting “Come back Arman. Come back Arman.”

After about half an hour, it was clear something had gone wrong. Some of the officials inside the party office were egging the rally on, handing out posters. Others were standing round, talking quietly.

Another half hour later, a small delegation of party leaders marched out of the main office, one of them carrying a megaphone.

“We are going to tell these people to move on,” said one. “But they are calling for Yasir’s return. Is there a new position? Is there split in the party,” I shouted after them. “There is no split,” answered one turning round. “These people have just not been briefed properly.”

The SPLM’s candidate for Khartoum governor, Edward Lino, went on to make a 10-minute megaphone speech, listing the reasons that he said justified Arman’s continued withdrawal.

Those included the continuing insecurity in Darfur and the reports of widespread fraud in the preparations for the vote, blamed on the followers of incumbent president Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

The newly briefed crowd took on the new message in minutes. “Come back Arman. Come back Arman” segued quickly into “No, no to fraud, no,no to fraud” An hour later they were back in their bus, flags still waving, heading for home, the presidential boycott still in force.

It might have been an amusing scene, but for its political implications. Western diplomats have told Reuters they are growing increasingly worried that real splits are opening up inside the SPLM and opposition parties in the build up to next Sunday’s election.

Both the opposition Umma and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) have appeared to announce total boycotts of elections over the past few days, only to back down sometimes hours later. Party insiders said Umma’s leadership was coming under pressure from grassroots supporters who felt they had invested too much time and money in campaigning to leave.

Now, analysts say, there are signs of a serious split inside the SPLM. One faction, based in the Muslim north, is keen to discredit the elections by keeping Arman out and going further by boycotting all levels of the parliamentary and gubernatorial elections in Sudan’s 15 northern states.

Another faction, based in the south, they say, is keen to keep the elections going, to placate Bashir and make sure he does nothing to disrupt what for them is an even more important vote – a referendum on southern secession due in January 2011.

Any further fragmentation among the parties, worry, diplomats, would only add to the turmoil in Sudan’s already fraught political scene.

There is little doubt that the opposition’s indecision over whether or not to boycott elections has already added to the popular cynicism swirling around the poll.

“The manifest inability of these parties to achieve something so elementary as forging a common front to participate in negotiations over the elections … is dispiriting to say the least,” said Sudanese academic Abd al-Wahab Abdalla in a comment on the blog Making Sense of Sudan.

“The news every day was: the two gentlemen leaders met – but they never decided anything,” housewife Amal Mohamed told Reuters. “Imagine if they can’t agree now, what would they do in government?”

Darfur’s more Islamic rebels will not appreciate the Judean comparison. But there has been an undeniable Pythonesque quality to recent efforts to negotiate with the splintered insurgent factions in Sudan’s strife-torn west.

Last month, Khartoum signed a ceasefire with Darfur’s rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). Days later, JEM threatened to pull out of further peace talks saying it was furious about Khartoum’s decision to sign a similar deal with the new rebel umbrella group the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM).

JEM lashed out at LJM, saying most of its constituent groups were bogus with no military strength, many of them government stooges. (The LJM’s member parties, who deny JEM’s accusations, include the United Resistance Front – URF, the Sudan Liberation Movement Mainstream – SLM-M and the Democratic Justice and Equality Movement – D-JEM, together with even more obscure bodies.)

LJM leaders lashed out at JEM, saying JEM had no right to monopolise the negotiations taking place in Qatar’s luxury hotels and conference centres.

Meanwhile the whole process was dismissed as a farce by the faction of the insurgent Sudan Liberation Army/Movement still loyal to commander Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur (SLA/M – Abdel Wahed), as well as by Abdel Shafie of the rival SLA/M – Abdel Shafie.

There is a serious point to make behind the Monty Python references and the ever thickening stew of rebel acronyms.

Seven years into Darfur’s festering conflict, the fragmentation of the region’s rebel groups remains one of the largest obstacles to a meaningful peace deal.

Many of the break-ups have been self inflicted, with ambitious commanders vying for power and exploiting ethnic divisions. But there has also been growing unease about the role played by external actors.

Foreign powers, chief among them the United States, have grown increasingly frustrated at the intransigence of Darfur’s two original rebel groups — JEM and Abdel Wahed’s SLA/M. So they have cast around for other people to deal with.

Serious questions marks remain over the groups they have managed to find.

First there is the continued rejection of the new groups by the established insurgents.

Second there is question of whether the new groups are large enough to be counted as real rebel players. The Small Arms Survey estimates one collection of rebels, brought together in Ethiopia last year by U.S. Sudan Envoy Scott Gration, operated out of as few as 20 Toyota Land Cruisers.

Third there are fears the search for new rebel groups has ended up creating new conflicts. A recent surge of violence in Darfur’s central Jabel Marra region reportedly started when Abdel Wahed’s forces attacked former comrades who had decided to leave and go to Doha under a new rebel banner.

All that aside, pity the poor journalists who have to cover the increasingly tangled web of Darfur peace negotiations. The dilemma for reporters is to find out which of the new groups actually represent anyone on the ground, which are worth talking to.

A few weeks ago, Sudan’s Ministry of Information phoned round news agencies to say a JEM delegation was about to arrive at Khartoum airport.

The first questions on every reporter’s lips were “Do you mean the real JEM? The JEM led by Khalil Ibrahim? The JEM that attacked Khartoum in May 2008?”

The answer from the ministry official seemed pretty clear. “It is JEM. We can’t tell you who exactly is coming. We want it to be a big surprise.”

We rushed to the airport to be greeted by an anonymous man in a suit who announced he was the leader of a group called JEM South Kordofan. He dodged questions about his exact allegiance and headed for the exit.

The next morning, JEM’s spokesman phoned from Doha to deny having any involvement with the visiting mission. “These people are nobodies,” he said. “Nothing to do with JEM.” In another time and another context, he may well have added: “Splitters!”

So here goes — five reasons why Africa’s largest country might just manage to reach January 2011 without a return to catastrophe and bloody civil war, despite the worst predictions of most pundits.

Oil
Often the cause of conflict, oil could end up helping to prevent it in Sudan. The country’s oil industry, as it currently stands, only works when north and south Sudan work together. The south has most of the known oil reserves while the north has all of the infrastructure — from pipelines to refineries to a sea port. Talk of a southern refinery and an alternative pipeline route to the sea via Kenya are currently “pie in the sky”, one diplomat told me.Both sides may choose to fight it out over contested border oilfields after the widely expected “yes” vote for southern independence, thereby disrupting oil flows and scaring off investors. But it would be much more profitable for all concerned to work out a revenue sharing scheme and live side by side as business partners. The south’s government gets up to 98 percent of its revenues from oil sales so would struggle to survive without some kind of deal. 

Talks and process
The scariest times since north and south Sudan ended their last civil war with a 2005 peace deal have come when northern and southern leaders stopped talking to each other.Since a breakthrough in negotiations over key legislation late last year, officials from both sides are currently holding almost daily face-to-face meetings. Many of those meetings are focusing on preparing for the elections and referendum.

Low expectations
The International Crisis Group issued a downbeat report saying both the north’s dominant National Congress Party (NCP) and the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) were interested in the elections “for the wrong reasons”.The NCP wanted to establish its political legitimacy, to counter the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against its leader President Omar Hassan al-Bashir over war crimes in Darfur, it said. And the SPLM wanted to tick off the election to get through to the next stage in the peace process, the prized referendum.But those limited aspirations might not be such a bad thing, if you are more interested in Sudan getting through its elections peacefully then having a technically perfect poll. If the NCP and the SPLM get what they want, they might have the clout to push Sudan through its tricky election period, steamrollering over already-mounting opposition complaints of vote fraud.

External pressure
External players in Sudan — among them China, Middle Eastern investors, and the United States — will use what influence they have to press for stability, for a mixture of humanitarian and commercial reasons.The 1983-2005 north-south civil war festered for so long partly because the rest of the world ignored it for so long. This time, thanks to other factors like the separate Darfur conflict, the world is watching Sudan closely.

War fatigue
The biggest hope for peace is that both sides will remember the cost of the last civil war — an estimated 2 million killed, 4 million forced to flee — and decide that nothing is worth a return to that level of bloodshed.

On other fronts, the Darfur conflict seems to be dying down, with peace talks scheduled for January. A surge of tribal violence in the south has so far not sparked any fighting north of the border.

The mainstream view remains that Sudan is heading towards disaster.

“A lethal cocktail of rising violence, chronic poverty and political tensions has left the peace deal on the brink of collapse,” warned ten aid groups in a report on Thursday. “Sudan is sliding towards violent breakup, and time is running out,” said the International Crisis Group in December. International efforts to “prevent all-out war in Sudan are failing,” said the U.S.-based Enough Project soon after.

But another oft-repeated truism about Sudan is its ability to come up with the unexpected, to catch even the mot seasoned “Sudan expert” by surprise.

So, might the most unexpected — and therefore the most truly Sudanese — outcome of the next 12 months be flawed but grudgingly-accepted elections, followed by a painful but grudgingly-accepted separation? What happens in the 12 months after that, of course, is another question. What do you think?