INTERVIEW: Sudan’s Turabi blasts peace power-sharing quotas

KHARTOUM, July 11 (AFP) — Opposition Islamic leader Hassan al-Turabi hit out Monday at Sudan’s new power-sharing arrangement that put a final seal on a north-south peace deal, saying it fails to represent the country’s political forces.

“I am not objecting to southern representation. They deserve it because they have been disadvantaged for so long, it is the other 52 percent,” Turabi told AFP in an interview.

Sudan’s President Omar al-Beshir promulgated a new constitution on Saturday in accordance with a January peace agreement with former southern rebel group Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM).

The deal, which was later enshrined in the constitution, grants Beshir’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) 52 percent of executive posts and legislative seats and the SPLM 28 percent.

“No constitution in the world ever wrote in letter a majority for a party,” said Turabi who was Beshir’s one-time mentor and has been on the offensive since he was freed from 15 months in detention on July 30.

Fourteen out of the remaining 20 percent will go to northern opposition parties, with the remaining six percent to be split among other southern groups.

Turabi argued that was not fair.

“The two major parties that have governed Sudan … are misrepresented,” he said, referring to the country’s two largest traditional parties — the Umma Party of former Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and the Democratic Unionist Party of Mohammed Osman al-Mirghani.

Both Turabi’s Popular Congress and Mahdi’s Umma party have already announced they would not participate in Sudan’s new national unity government whose formation is under way.