Sudan’s DUP denies supporting Bashir candidacy
August 31, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — The opposition Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) dismissed reports published in the Sudanese capital on its support to the candidacy of President Omer Al-Bashir for another term.
However, both elections were widely considered to be a sham.
According to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005, Bashir has to remain in post during the interim period.
Al-Tayar, a new Arabic language daily reported today that Al-Haj Atta Al-Manan, a leading DUP member said that his party and the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) had agreed to nominate Al-Bashir as joint candidate for the presidential election next year.
The report also said the two parties reached an agreement on the distribution of the electoral constituencies.
“I would like to announce that no such matter has been discussed within the party and its institutions, and that could never be the position of the Democratic Unionist Party. I do not think that anyone from the party leadership would dare to take this position,” said the deputy chairman Ali Mahmoud Hassanein.
Hassanein further said that such position is against the heritage of the party and DUP masses are “not only opposed to the totalitarian regimes but combat it.”
The opposition lawyer added that are coming “in line with the policy of the NCP to sabotage the work of other political powers.”
Hassanein, aged 75 years, is a vocal critic of the government. He has spoken against restrictions on press freedoms and security abuses. Also he is a supporter of the ICC. He had been detained in July 2008 on charges of attempting to overthrow the government.
The DUP was second largest partner in the last democratically elected government in 1986. However, after the coup its leader Mohamed Osman Al-Mirghani headed the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) which fought the Bashir government in the 1990’s.
However in 2005, Al-Mirghani signed a reconciliation agreement with the Sudanese government in Cairo by which DUP took part in the government.
The DUP has been rocked by deep divsions and mass defections. Unlike the Umma party and the Sudanee Communist Party the DUP did not hold its convention since its bases returned to Sudan.
Al-Mirghani has grow closer to the NCP in recent years despite accusations by the DUP that the ruling party is encourage its members to defect.
The religious leader of the Khatmiya religious sect has opposed the deployment of international peacekeepers in Darfur and the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Bashir.
Some observors have said that the DUP is split between its members who are followers of the Khatmiya sect and the non-Khatmiya.
Next year will witness the organization of the first free and fair elections in the country observed by international monitors for the first time since more than twenty years.
The NCP campaigns in order to ensure the re-election of President Al-Bashir who faces an arrest warrant by the ICC since last March.
(ST)