Sudan’s president Al-Bashir might vie in next elections, his party says
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April 22, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s President Omer Al-Bashir will run
for presidency in next elections at his party’s discretion, an
official said on Friday, dousing earlier assertions that the
21-year-ruling leader will not seek another spell in power.
JPEG - 11.2 kb
Sudan President Omer al-Bashir arrives at Khartoum airport March 31,
2011 (REUTERS PICTURES)
North Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) announced in
February this year that its chairman Al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan since
seizing power in a military coup in 1989, would not seek re-elections
in 2015, leading to speculations that the party was trying to preempt
a revolt similar to the ones currently seen in some Arab countries.
"[Bashir] announced that he will not enter the coming elections to
compete for the presidency," Rabie Abdel-Aati, a senior National
Congress Party official, was quoted by news agencies.
"I can confirm 100 percent that Bashir is not going to run for
president in the next election. He will actually give a chance to
different personalities to compete for the position," Abdel-Aati said.
"But he is not under pressure... This is not in the context of the
change that is happening in the Arab world. It is happening because of
the political strategy of the NCP to broaden participation," he added.
But the NCP’s Vice-President Nafi Ali Nafi on Friday contradicted his
colleague’s statement, raising the possibility of his party fielding
Al-Bashir as a presidential candidate in 2015 elections.
“I know that Al-Bashir has no desire to run again, however, our work
is not subject to people’s desires, but rather to what the
organization sees,” Nafi said in a radio interview on Friday, adding
that asking Al-Bashir to vie in next elections was definitely a
possibility if the NCP sees so.
Sudan held general-elections in April 2010 under the provisions of the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended in 2005 nearly half a
century of intermittent civil wars between north and south Sudan,
which also voted in January to secede and form an independent state in
July this year. The NCP won a landslide victory and Al-Bashir was
re-elected in the vote which was marred by opposition boycotts and
reports of mass fraud.
Separately, the hard-line NCP official said that the opposition
National Umma Party (NUP) might join the current government if a
“limited number” of issues are agreed upon, including the issue of the
International Criminal Court (ICC) which the NUP views as a legitimate
judicial body, according to Nafi, as well as reduction of the
country’s states to six provinces.
The NUP leader and former Prime Minister, Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, said this
week that points of disagreements in his party’s dialogue with the NCP
would be referred to a “decisive” meeting with Al-Bashir.
Al-Mahdi has consistently defended his decision to engage in a
dialogue with the NCP despite dissatisfaction within the NUP’s ranks
and calls by his allies in the opposition coalition for political
mobilization to topple the regime.
He asserts that his party is negotiating over a raft of demands he
terms as “the national agendas”, including a solution to the ICC which
is seeking the arrest of Al-Bashir on charges of war crimes, crimes of
humanity and genocide allegedly committed in the country’s westernmost
region of Darfur.
The NCP and Al-Bashir refuse to comply with the ICC’s warrants of
arrests, repeatedly denigrating the court as a western conspiracy to
change the regime in Sudan.
(ST)
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