Umma party rejects partnership with Sudan’s military leaders

The National Umma Party (NUP) said opposed to a political partnership between the civilian and armed forces in Sudan, reads a statement released after a meeting with the tripartite mechanism facilitating an intra-Sudanese dialogue.

The large political party, which is a member of the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), is a cardinal pillar of this political coalition. The military leaders sought to bring them to their side together with some Darfur armed groups and other political factions allied with the former regime.

“The Party stressed that the relationship between the civil and military forces should be within the framework of participation and not a partnership in government,” reads a statement issued by the NUP Secretary-General al-Wathiq al-Berair on May 17.

Al-Berair added that such a relationship would allow the armed forces to devote themselves to their constitutional functions and serve national issues within their competencies.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan head of the Sovereign Council overthrew the civilian government on October 25, 2021, after a public and heated debate with the FFC forces over the reform of the security sector and the need to end their growing economic activities.

Also, al-Burhan accused the coalition of seeking to grip on power and refused to hand over the chairmanship of the Sovereign Council to a civilian as it had been previously agreed in the constitutional declaration of August 2019.

The NUP secretary-general said they asserted the party’s “firm position” on the need to end the coup d’état and fully return power to civilians within the framework of constitutional legitimacy agreed upon by the Sudanese.

The military sought during the past months to convince the Party acting leader Nasser Burma, a former army general, to rally them but their attempts faced strong opposition from the party’s leadership body.

It is worth mentioning that the Sudanese Revolutionary Front led by Hadi Idris, which is an FFC member, has adopted a different position from its allies as they said committed to the partnership with the military component.

The FFC propose that the military role be limited to the security sector through the national security council, which will gather the army command, the prime minister and some other senior members of the civilian cabinet.

For his part, al-Burhan says that the experience of the transitional government in 1985 remains the best example to follow.

At that time, the army leaders governed the country while a civilian caretaker government prepared the elections.

(ST)