NCP’s prominent member resigns, criticizing party performance

17 October 2011 (KHARTOUM) – A leading member of Sudan’s National Congress Party (NCP) has resigned from the helm of the party secretariat he led for two years, raising questions about the ruling party’s performance.

Ibrahim Ahmad Omer, the head of the NCP secretariat of thought and culture and minister of science and technology, announced his resignation during the conference of his secretariat in the capital Khartoum on Monday.

Omer told the audience that the party needs to review the performance of its organs in order to correct their direction, challenging NCP members to think critically of the party’s performance.

“What has the NCP done in the face of the challenges that faced the country for more than 20 years,” he said, urging NCP members not to be afraid in criticizing the party’s performance.

Omer stressed that NCP leaders must be held accountable for their performance and allow the youth to climb up the ladder of power.

It is to be noted that recent conferences of the NCP’s political and external relations secretariats have witnessed a barrage of criticism by party members against the performance of the government and calls for policy reforms.

At the opening session of the conference of the NCP’s political sector, Omer also questioned the seriousness of the party in dialogue with mainstream opposition parties, namely the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the National Umma Party (NUP).

Omer, who was in charge of his party’s committee in talks with the DUP, asked whether his party’s dialogue with NUP and DUP was “well arranged or was the dialogue of the deaf?”

NCP’s dialogue with both NUP and DUP have so far failed to persuade the two biggest opposition parties to join the government the NCP intends to form. Both parties indicated that the NCP did not offer enough concessions to allow genuine sharing of power.

(ST)