Bashir meets Al-Mirghani after DUP’s rally
17 October 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s president Omer Al-Bashir met on Tuesday with Mohamed Osman Al-Mirghani, leader of the opposition Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), one day after his party held a packed rally pervaded by strong calls for public uprising.
“We agree on the basis of rejecting foreign interferences in Sudan,” the veteran opposition leader was quoted.
Al-Mirghani said that his party’s dialogue with Al-Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) was not premised on how to join the government but rather on how to resolve the country’s crises in the western region of Darfur and border states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan.
The DUP leader said that the dialogue between the two parties was still continuing but not in order to achieve participation in power.
Al-Bashir’s meeting with Al-Mirghani comes on the heels of a large gathering the DUP organized on Monday in Khartoum north where party supporters expressed enthusiasm to support a public uprising.
Addressing Monday’s rally, the DUP’s spokesman Hatim Al-Sir said that the offer given by the NCP for the DUP to participate in the government did not befit the party’s stature.
The DUP spokesman also lashed out at the NCP’s policies, saying they would inevitably lead to Sudan’s implosion.
Meanwhile, the NCP’s spokesman Ibrahim Gandur said that the delay in announcing the new government was due to continuing dialogue with opposition parties, expressing hope that the parties would accept Al-Bashir’s invite to participate in power.
Gandur, however, acknowledged the chances of failure in the dialogue with opposition parties, saying that not everyone must be represented in power for the country to have democracy.
(ST)