Sudan’s Bashir excludes SPLM figures from his new list of advisers

July 8, 2010 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir today announced his new list of advisers almost a month after he was sworn in for a new term following his sweeping win in April’s elections.

Bashir reduced the number of his advisers from 18 to 14 and left out members of the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) who previously served on his team of advisers including Mansour Khalid, William Ajal Deng and Andrew Makour.

It is not clear if the exclusion of SPLM figures was done at the request of the movement which is the dominant political power in the South.

Early next year, South Sudan will have their self determination referendum as a key provision of a 2005 peace deal which ended a decades-long war between north and south Sudan, a conflict which left two million people dead. It is widely expected that Southerners will choose independence after more than two decades of bitter civil war with the North.

Bashir’s decree kept leading figures from the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) such as Ghazi Salah Al-Deen Al-Attabani, Mustafa Osman Ismail and Salah Abdullah Gosh who was the former spy chief.

Bona Malwal, a prominent South Sudanese figure opposed to the former rebel movement, retained his post.

Among the newcomers into the advisers team are Ibrahim Ahmed Omer, Al-Sheik Beesh, Raja Hassan Khalifa, and Agnes Lukudu, a southern member of Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party.

(ST)