Five weeks remain until the south is scheduled to vote on an independence referendum that could see the south break away from the north and create the world’s newest country.

Anne Itto, a top official in the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and a minister in the southern government, insisted that delaying the referendum for “even a single day” is unacceptable to southerners.

The National Congress Party, which heads the Sudanese government in Khartoum, has deliberately blocked progress on “activities related to the preparation of the referendum,” Itto said.

“They’ve really wanted it not to be conducted as scheduled,” said Itto.

The 2005 north-south peace accord that ended more than two decades of civil war called for the northern and southern parties to work together to conduct the January independence vote. Issues like border demarcation and oil revenue sharing have yet to be worked out.

Itto’s announcement that the south wants no delay in the vote comes amid press reports indicating that Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil, a northerner who is the chairman of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission, has asked Sudan President Omar Bashir and Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir to consider delaying the vote.

Itto said that the southern party and the commission itself have been assured by the United Nations Development Program and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems that it is still possible to carry out the vote on time.