Half way through the evening you felt this is what a united Sudan could have been like.

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.

Back in1978, Sudanese statesman Abel Alier decided he had had enough of negotiating with troublesome locals over a controversial development project. Exasperated at the endless obstacles, he vowed to force it through without an agreement.

“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.

The shiny new headquarters of Sudan’s referendum commission was buzzing with activity on Monday, less than four months ahead of the scheduled start of a seismic vote on whether the country’s oil-producing south should declare independence.

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.

What’s in a name? An entire cultural and national identity if you are from Sudan’s oil-producing south.

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.

When it takes place in Sudan.

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.

These are confusing times in Sudanese politics — so confusing that even the activists are struggling to keep up with the shifting positions of their own parties a week ahead of national elections.

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.

There is a classic scene in Monty Python’s film The Life of Brian where the hero sets off in search of a secret band of insurgents. “Are you the Judean People’s Front,” he asks a group of malcontents. “The Judean People’s Front!” they reply in disgust. “We’re the People’s Front of Judea … The only people we hate more than the Romans are the f***ing Judean People’s Front … And the Judean Popular People’s Front. Splitters!”

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.

Only the most foolhardy commentator would dare to say anything optimistic about the coming year in Sudan, four months away from highly charged elections and 12 months from an explosive referendum on southern independence.

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.

So, is it now inevitable that Sudan’s oil-producing south will decide to split away from the north as an independent country in a looming secession referendum in 2011?That was the conclusion of some observers of a bluntly worded exchange of views between two leading lights from the north and the south at a symposium in Khartoum on Tuesday.Sudan’s Muslim north fought a two decade civil war with southerners, most of them Christians and followers of traditional beliefs. The 2005 peace deal that ended that conflict set up a north/south coalition government and promised a referendum on southern secession.Sudan’s foreign minister Deng Alor told journalists at the symposium most of his fellow southerners, embittered by decades of northern oppression and imposed Islamic values, “overwhelmingly” wanted independence. Only a miracle would change their minds, he said, going on to appeal for a “peaceful divorce” should the south choose to split.Two days earlier, southern president Salva Kiir shocked many when he openly told a cathedral congregation they should choose independence if they wanted to be free and unity if they wanted to be “second class” in their own country.Powerful northern presidential advisor Ghazi Salaheddin countered on Tuesday by accusing southerners of paranoia, “living in victimhood” and mismanaging their own semi-autonomous region.The comments were unusually blunt and personal for such a public venue. To many, their tone was a bitter reminder of the rhetoric routinely thrown around before the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).Sudan commentator Alex de Waal wrote on his blog that many of the comments echoed what had been said in earlier closed sessions in the U.N. sponsored conference.

“During the earlier sessions of the symposium, the same theme was repeatedly made: Sudan is entering its last days as a single nation. Among the northerners, there was immense regret, but also acceptance of the inevitability of the split. One well-known Islamist said that secession was coming and the important thing was to make it smooth.”

Managing a smooth secession would be a huge task for northerners and southerners weighed down by decades of mistrust and bitter grievance, poisoned by ethnic and religious divisions.There are many good reasons for them to want a peaceful divorce, beyond avoiding another bloody conflict.The biggest factor is that they both need each other when it comes to oil — the south has most of the country’s proven oil reserves while the north currently has the refineries and the pipeline routes to the sea.But any managed separation needs planning, and plenty of it. So far there has been no sign that the two sides have got together for any kind of strategising on the implications of separation after the referendum.The head of the U.N. in Sudan, Ashraf Qazi, tried to accentuate the positive when he summed up Tuesday’s discussions, saying both sides remained committed to the ideal of unity.But there was a telling slip as he finished his summation.

“We are still at a moment of hope. And I believe that the leadership of the two countries which have ensured that the peace is maintained, that the ceasefire has not broken down, during the period of the CPA, they have already shown that responsibility. They can rise to the challenge even now.”