Juba - South Sudan’ former rebels will contest key governor posts in the 26 states of  Africa’s largest nation in historic elections due in April, with new candidates for half the posts  in the south, a top official said Sunday.

The south’s ruling Sudan Peoples? Liberation Movement (SPLM) is challenging its former civil  war enemies in the north in the first elections in 24 years.

Four women were selected, two in the north, and two in the south, including Nyandeng Malek  Deliec for the troubled Warrap state, where recent clashes between rival ethnic groups have  left dozens dead.

The SPLM nominated Simon Kun Puoc, the current head of the southern government?s  humanitarian arm, for the oil rich state of Upper Nile, currently the only governorship in the  south held by the ruling National Congress Party.

The elections were provided for in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in  2005 between north and south Sudan to end a devastating 22-year civil war that cost the lives  of two million people.

The CPA is meant also to pave the way for a referendum on southern independence in
January 2011.