Elections should be organized if Sudan’s transition overwhelms government: al-Mhadi

November 9, 2019 (KHARTOUM) – National Umma Party (NUP) leader Sadiq al-Mahdi has announced his party’s unwavering support for the transitional government but warned that the magnitude of the tasks could lead to call for general elections in the country.

In a speech delivered on the occasion of the birth of the Prophet Mohammad on Saturday, al-Mahdi criticized some of NUP’s allied political forces in the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC). He further stressed that the deposed regime destroyed state institutions instead left its party institutions, private companies, media agencies and “masked militias”, as he said.

He then criticized Sudan’s Communist Party and described it as a “Communist Salafist party” that was acting recklessly and criticizing in all directions, in a destructive way.

NUP leader also said that one of the main components of the revolution and the FFC, the Sudanese Professionals Association, needs to develop their organizational structure and form a democratic political party similar to the British Labour Party or return to their traditional professional union structures.

“Some holdout armed opposition forces instead of unifying their position to use a rare historical opportunity (…) to remove all the root causes of the conflict, many of them entered the auction bids threatening to turn the important peace file into a political auction,” he added.

The leader of the largest political party in Sudan had refused in the past all the offers made by the former regime to participate in the rule of the country.

However, it remained in constant divergence with the Sudanese Communist Party as it called for dialogue to achieve democratic transition while the left forces rejected any negotiations with the Islamists.

Last October, al-Mahdi resigned from the leadership of the Sudan Call, pointing to the need to restructure the large alliance which includes armed groups participating in the Juba peace talks.

However, despite these difficulties, he stressed that his party supports the transitional government and is working for its success.

“Whatever the reservations we have, we support the transitional government institutions and prepare ourselves to confront extremists and advocates of the former regime at all levels: in the neighbourhoods, in the localities and in capitals, and we strengthen the institutions of government by the support and advice,” said the 84-old political leader.

Before to say “if the march is stalled because of the magnitude of the challenges, the remedy is to jump forward (…) and to hold a free general election in which the parties of the deposed regime are excluded from participation until the required revisions and self-criticism take place”.

Sudanese professional and political opposition forces carried out a 4-month successful revolution that overthrew the 30-year repressive regime headed by the ICC wanted Omer al-Bashir.

However, alone under the burden of U.S. sanctions and lack of economic resources, the Sudanese civilian government is facing huge challenges on the economic plan.

Also, the Islamists started to mobilise their forces hoping that the tough economic conditions the country is experiencing would create conducive political conditions to retake power.

An international and regional group ‘Friends of Sudan’ will meet next month in Khartoum to decide what kind of support can be delivered to the Sudanese government. While officials in Washington say they have a process that may take a year until they remove Sudan from the terror list.

But, al-Mahdi called on the international community to develop the Friends of Sudan to an international conference on Sudan entitled ‘Davos for Sudan’ to support a just and comprehensive peace in the country and to support economic development.

(ST)