Sudanese president outlines features of post-secession North

June 2, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese President Omer Hassan al-Bashir on Thursday ruled out the possibility of calling for early elections stressing that the next one will be held in 2015 as planned.

Addressing the Shura council of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), Bashir underscored the dominance of his party and described opposition parties as “weak” which according to him meant that the NCP faces no real competition.

However, the Sudanese president warned his party against feeling “relaxed” as a result of the NCP having the upper hand in the political arena.

“We will start in wrestling [among] ourselves [then] differences and divisions will explode [within the NCP]” Bashir said.

The NCP achieved a landslide victory in the elections held in April 2010 which was boycotted by the major opposition parties and marred by allegations of fraud. International observers who monitored the elections said the exercise failed to meet full international standards but nonetheless endorsed its overall credibility.

Bashir offered help to opposition parties so that they are in better shape to compete next time. He further affirmed his intention to form a broad based government with participation from other parties on the basis of an agreed agenda “and not for the sake of participation”.

“We will not hold early elections or otherwise and we shall endeavor to assist the [opposition] parties to prepare themselves for the upcoming elections because the democratic process is based on parties that are active in the [political] arena,” he said,

“If we want to be a solo party we will end up splitting into two or three parties” Bashir cautioned.

The NCP chief said that the party must formulate a new vision based on dialogue with all the components of the Sudanese society in order to draft a new constitution for North Sudan following the official independence of the South in July.

He revealed that a national committee will be formed which will include all of the political, social, and vocational spectrum to draft the document, send it to the parliament and once authorized put it to a referendum vote.

POST-SECESSION ECONOMY

The Sudanese president sounded the warning bell over the North’s economy once the oil-producing South goes away saying that further austerity measures will have to be undertaken to weather the impact.

The government has already partially removed subsidies on sugar and petroleum products and banned certain imports to preserve the foreign exchange reserves.

Sudanese officials sought to downplay the economic effects of the split saying that the North will manage to come up with other sources of revenue to compensate for the loss in oil revenue.

“The separation of south Sudan will have an economic impact on us. We’re going to lose our share of south Sudan’s oil,” Bashir said.

“So we are going to have a three-year programme, under which we will reduce the government’s expenses and create a new income for the government… by extending the taxation umbrella,” he added.

He noted that no new taxes will be imposed.

The North and South have been splitting the oil revenue in accordance with the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

There has been conflicting signs on how much the South is willing to offer the North from its oil exports after independence. Most recently Southern officials seemed to rule out any possibility of oil sharing after independence.

But while most of Sudan’s proven daily output of 500,000 oil barrel is extracted from oilfields in the landlocked south, the pipelines infrastructure and refineries are based in the north. The South will therefore be required to pay a fee to transport its oil and ship it abroad from the terminal in Port Sudan.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in report this year that the North may lose 75% of oil revenues in a worst case scenario that would result in domestic and external imbalances.

“With oil revenue constituting more than half of government revenue and 90 percent of exports, the economy will need to adjust to a permanent shock, particularly at a time when the country has little access to external financing”, said the report.

To confront this scenario, the IMF stressed that North Sudan will need to reduce spending, lift fuel subsidies, reduce tax exemptions and enhance revenue administration, all of which were outlined by Bashir today.

The number of ministers will be reduced as a part of the cost-cutting scheme, Bashir said, while top presidential aide Nafie Ali Nafie will head a committee charged with drawing up the new taxation policy.

He vowed to enhance transparency and accountability in the government which many observers say have been severely undermined since the 1989 coup which brought Bashir to power.

“We will start the process of reform first by excluding the civil service and public service of politicization and political appointment” he said.

Earlier this year Bashir ordered the establishment of anti-corruption commission, an organ to help graduates find jobs and to increase the participation of youth in the party and government.

Sudan is already facing an economic crisis, due to soaring inflation, a weakening currency and huge foreign debt, estimated at around $38 billion, which together with US sanctions has choked its sources of external financing.

(ST)