SPLM runner for Sudan president says walking Obama’s ‘change’ path

January 16, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) nominee for president Yasir Arman said he wants to press for the motto of change similar to that of US president Barack Obama that helped him sweep the presidential elections.

The Northern figure told the London based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat in an interview that the SPLM has “great political leaders and have great potential, and any one of them can do the job and run for the position but it was my candidacy for the presidential elections”.

Arman expressed confidence in winning the elections at all levels including presidential and parliamentary.

“SPLM is a national liberation movement has been struggling for many years and made great sacrifices, it stands with the issues of change and ‘change’ is the first word in the program of the SPLM, as well as the issue of a real transition to democracy, and justice for marginalized and vulnerable, human rights, the rights of women, is the most important is what we want done” he said.

He said that the SPLM has a “vision that could solve the Darfur issue and normalize Sudan’s relations foreign regionally and internationally”.

On Thursday the SPLM nominated Arman to run against president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir in the first free and fair election since the coup d’état that brought General Al Bashir to power on June 30, 1989.

Arman a senior figure in the party is serving as Deputy Secretary General for Northern Sudan and the head of the SPLM bloc in the Sudanese National Assembly.

The SPLM longtime member said that the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) “sat in power for a long time” adding that it cannot face many of the internal and external issues facing the country.

He denied that his nomination is made to politically challenge the NCP saying it is part of a the democratic process.

“This exercise of democratic elections must be free and fair….even within a single party they nominate more than one person; let alone from different parties which have different visions and programs, there should be elections, these are not words of confrontation or clash, but a democratic exercise, to hand over power to the people, and this is what we agreed in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, that the people make their own choices” Arman said.

Arman said that his win in the elections would help “strengthen relations between north and south” irrespective of the 2011 referendum outcome.

(ST)