Sudan’s PCP says no plans to join government
November 1, 2013 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) has strongly denied any intentions to join the current government and called upon those whom it described as “loyalists” to leave the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) stressing that it will not participate in the upcoming 2015 elections.
The Sudanese Vice President, al-Hag Adam Youssef, said in a meeting with the political parties in Kassala state on Wednesday that the opposition National Umma Party (NUP) and the PCP are close to join the new government without giving further details, pointing that an agreement with the two parties would soon be concluded.
The PCP’s political secretary, Kamal Omer, said at a press conference on Thursday that the “NCP’s tree has decayed”.
The tree was the logo of the NCP in the 2010 general elections.
Omer said that his party would not hesitate to suspend dialogue with the NCP on some national issues and pointed that the PCP is adversely affected by statements made by senior government officials claiming that it would soon join the government, describing those statements as “irrational”.
Omer announced that the PCP would not participate in the 2015 general elections, saying that the NCP has specialized engineers in “elections rigging”.
He asserted that nobody could question his party’s religious principles, stressing that no one enjoys a “veto” power to defend the religion (Islam).
Omer further denied that the general secretary of the PCP, Hassan Al-Turabi, held secret meetings with Sudan’s president, Omer Hassan Al-Bashir, saying that the two men only had quick encounters in several social events.
The PCP split from the NCP following 1999’s bitter power struggle between Bashir and Al-Turabi. The latter was ousted from his post as parliament speaker.
Al-Turabi afterwards established the PCP and has since been a vociferous critic of the very regime whose army-backed seizure of power in 1989 he orchestrated.
(ST)