On March 8th nine southern opposition parties announced that they were withdrawing from a committee set up to draft a new constitution for Southern Sudan, accusing the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), the ruling party in Southern Sudan, of dominating the review process. The withdrawal may prove only temporary, but it is indicative of the divisions between the SPLM and southern opposition parties, and of the possibility that these divisions may widen before or after Southern Sudan secedes from Sudan. The largest of the nine opposition parties are the SPLM-Democratic Change (SPLM-DC), the United Democratic Salvation Front, and the South Sudan Democratic Front. These and the other parties feel aggrieved by the SPLM's near-total dominance of the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) and the southern parliament, the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly, and accuse the SPLM of dominating the constitutional review committee.

The preparation of a new or revised constitution for Southern Sudan is just one of the tasks currently preoccupying GOSS and the SPLM. GOSS is preparing a National Development Plan for 2011-13 and a South Sudan Vision 2040, and ministries are meant to be preparing their own five-year strategies. Following a meeting in mid-February of the SPLM political bureau, the SPLM announced that the official name of the new state, after secession, will be South Sudan. The SPLM also announced that it had approved the new country's flag and the name of the country's future currency, the South Sudan pound. These decisions were subsequently approved at a meeting of the Southern Sudan Political Parties Leadership Forum, which is a forum for south-south political dialogue.