By Opheera McDoom
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's south said a census vital tosharing wealth and power with its former northern foe would nottake place until questions on ethnicity and religion -- majorissues behind decades of civil war -- were included.
The semi-autonomous south withdrew from the census onSaturday three days before it was due to begin, saying thenorth-south border needed to be demarcated and southernersliving in the north needed to return home before it began.
The northern National Congress Party (NCP) said a delay inthe census -- needed to define constituencies -- could pushback Sudan's first democratic elections in 23 years due in2009.
But South Sudanese Vice President Riek Machar said thesouth would not participate without the ethnicity and racequestions and his wife, who is also a state minister, said theelection could go ahead.
"Ethnicity and religion are crucial issues. They addressthe identity of Sudan," Machar told Reuters. "Our wars arebased on (the question:) What is Sudan?"
Sudan's national cabinet, including southern and northernministers, debated the census on Sunday but one source insidethe meeting said both sides stuck firm to their positions.
"(The cabinet) invited the government of southern Sudan toretract its decision on delaying the population census,"Information Minister al-Zahawi Ibrahim Malik told reporters inKhartoum after the meeting.
He said any decision on whether the census would go aheadin the north without the south would be taken by thepresidency.
First Vice President southerner Salva Kiir is to arrive inKhartoum on Monday to have crisis talks with President OmarHassan al-Bashir, one source in the government said.
VOTE DELAY?
The NCP said the return of displaced southerners andmarking the north-south border were not conditions that had tobe met before the census, state news agency SUNA reported. Thesouth had also already agreed to alternatives to questions onethnicity and religion, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
Machar's wife, State Minister of Energy Angelina Teny,dismissed NCP warnings that the vote could be postponed, saying"We can mark out the constituencies in the first four months ofnext year so it really shouldn't delay the elections".
Machar said the delay would give the two sides time toresolve key outstanding issues like demarcating the north-southborder and gaining access to Sudan's western Darfur region,where rebels took up arms in 2003 displacing almost half thepopulation and creating anarchic security conditions.
The imposition of Islamic sharia law in 1983 fuelledSudan's civil war. The former rebels say the south is mainlyChristian or animist whereas some in the north say there aremore Muslims in the south.
The war claimed 2 million lives and forced more than 4million from their homes. The 2005 deal does not cover theDarfur conflict. Darfur's rebel groups have rejected thecensus, as have many Darfuris living in camps in the remotewest.
(Additional reporting by Skye Wheeler in Nabanga; Editingby Michael Winfrey)
