Mysterious “reform memo” mirrors split of Sudan’s Islamists
January 11, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – Signs of discord have begun to appear within Sudan’s ruling Islamists after an anonymous group submitted a memo to President Al-Bashir calling for urgent reforms to address threats to the country’s unity and fight widespread corruption.
It contains demands for reforms of state policy including fighting corruption, establishment of a citizenship-based state, and banning the combination of party positions with constitutional positions.
News of the controversial memo, which was circulated via email to a number of key Islamists, coincides with the ongoing conduct of the NIF’s grassroots conferences in a number of states ahead of its general congress slated for August this year.
NIF was dissolved and replaced with the NCP a few years after its military wing conducted a military coup in 1989, which brought President Al-Bashir to power.
However, the NIF was reinstated following the 1999 schism in the NCP which saw the former NIF leader Hassan Al-Turabi being ousted after a bitter power struggle with President Al-Bashir and the civilian Islamists who sided with him, including Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha.
Taha currently serves as the NIF’s secretary-general but its activities have been largely dormant.
Sources told Sudan Tribune that the memo was submitted few days ago to the NCP’s vice-chairman and presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie by a number of Islamists affiliated to the NIF.
The sources added that the disgruntled Islamists leveled severe criticism on the government and its new cabinet, accusing NCP leaders of overstepping NIF members and confining positions to individuals who are tarnished by allegations of corruption and inefficiency.
The Khartoum based daily newspaper Al-Tayyar reported that the identity of the memo’s signers is yet to be known, but quoted sources as saying that the idea had probably emerged from the members of NCP’s parliamentary bloc due to their unhappiness with the refusal of the party’s leadership to consider a reform memo they had previously tabled.
The paper’s sources suggested that the NCP’s rejection of the first memo led its legislative branch to adopt a strong stance against the proposed budget that was tabled before the parliament late last year.
Meanwhile, some key personalities within the NIF denied knowledge about the memo and others denied its existence all together.
Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Atabani, a prominent NCP member and adviser to Bashir, said he did know anything about the memo.
Another Islamist source, quoted on condition of anonymity by the Sudanese daily newspaper Al-Intibaha, has termed news of the memo as mere fabrication.
Other sources spoke to Sudan Tribune of growing dissatisfaction among a group known as the Jihadists within the NCP. They said that the Jihadist group, whose members were mobilized under the slogans of Jihad to fight in the war with South Sudan, is unhappy about the situation within the government and the NCP.
The new memo brought back to memory the famous ‘memo of the ten’ which led to the ousting of Al-Turabi, who moved on to form the Popular Congress Party and join the ranks of the opposition.
The most prominent signers of the ‘memo of the ten’, which was championed by Taha, included Ghazi Salah al-Din, Amin Hassan Omar, Ali Karti, Osama Abdulla and the late presidential adviser Majzoub Al-Khalifa.
(ST)