She has been in Pibor, Jonglei for the last few days trying to campaign. A journalist had joined her and was making a short documentary on the campaign, focusing on her being a “her” and running for a position in the upcoming elections in Sudan. According to Mary, the people she was able to meet with gave her a good response. She did however run into a few problems with some officials in the area.
It seems that some people were not impressed that she had a journalist tagging along with her. The commissioner gave them permission to film, as long as that filming focused on Mary and no one else. Then late one night they were visited by an angry official who demanded that the journalist leave immediately or he would be in trouble. After quite a bit of argument and negotiation, they were able to calm that issue down.
Mary had also been given permission to hold a political rally at one location. But when the time came, they found the location occupied by SPLM members who were also holding a political rally that same day. She tried to discuss this issue with the relevant authorities, but didn’t get anywhere. Needless to say she wasn’t able to hold her rally.
She was never threatened or intimidated directly, but she indicated that she felt very insecure on a number of occasions. That combined with the harassment of the journalist she was with and the obvious obstacles thrown in her way she decided it would be best to return to Juba and “regroup” before making another go at campaigning in the area.
For all of the issues she experienced, she still sounded upbeat and hopeful. She figures she wouldn’t be having so many problems if she didn’t actually have a chance of getting the vote. She spoke with a Murle intellectual in Bor who tried to convince her to give it up. His argument was that her party was too small and even if she managed to get the vote out of Pibor, she wouldn’t get the vote throughout the rest of the 11 counties in the state.
She wasn’t convinced and she definitely isn’t ready to give it up.
Next on her agenda is to hopefully secure more funding and see if she can manage to travel to Boma, Pochalla and a few other locations throughout Jonglei.
