Sudan’s Bashir dissolves cabinet as talks continue for new government
May 30, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir dissolved today the government of national unity as discussion for the formation of a new cabinet with the southern Sudan ruling party are still continuing.
Al-Bashir, on Sunday four days after he was sworn in for a new term, announced the end of appointment of Senior Presidential Assistant, Presidential Assistant, advisers, ministers and state ministers.
The Sudanese President appointed under-secretaries and secretaries-general to manage the functions of national ministries as caretakers, said a statement read by Omer Mohamed Saleh the spokesperson of the Council of Ministers.
The president also maintained the ministers of the presidential affairs, Bakri Hassan Saleh, and defence, Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein and the minister of state for cabinet affairs, Kamal Abdellatif, in their posts until the formation of the new government within a week.
Bashir reaffirmed his commitment to form a broad-based government to fulfill the pledged he made in his electoral programme.
On Saturday the Sudanese Presidency held a meeting chaired by President Al-Bashir and attended by his two deputies Salva Kiir Maydrit and Ali Osman Mohamed Taha to discuss the formation of the new government.
The meeting endorsed an agreement on the programme of the coming government and its formation prepared by a joint committee of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).
According to the deal the southern Sudan ruling party will be allocated 30 percent of the ministerial posts.
SPLM leading member Yasir Arman told Sudan Tribune that the discussions are going on between the two peace partners on the composition of the new cabinet.
However up to now his party obtained eight ministers and 10 state ministers in the new federal government. But he further said they demand 11 ministers as the total of the ministerial portfolios is 35 ministries.
“The SPLM will conserve all the ministries it had during the national unity government,” Yasir said adding “the NCP wants the foreign ministry and in such a case we are ready to exchange it with the ministry of energy,” he stressed.
He also underlined that under the new government the attributions of the ministry of energy are divided between three ministries: oil, electricity and mining.
Arman said that the SPLM ministers during the interim period were without effective powers, stressing they want guarantees to ensure a genuine participation in the new government and not repeat the past experience.
According to the results of April elections, the NCP won most of the parliamentary seats in northern Sudan. The opposition parties who participated in the polls have some representatives in the national parliament.
Nonetheless the ruling party said keen to involve the parties who participated in the elections like the Democratic Unionist Party of Mohamed Osman Al-Mirghani in the new government.
Also the government will engage some small political formations members of a coalition led by the NCP.
Speaking about the programme of the forthcoming government, Arman said they want it to focus mainly on the implementation of the remaining issues of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the resolution of Darfur conflict and the democratic transition.
The NCP, on the other side, want it to focus on a void propaganda for the unity of Sudan, he added.
“The old unity died and is over. If the NCP wants to unite the Sudan they must work with us to establish this unity new bases and Khartoum ought to change its policies,” he concluded.
(ST)