Sudanese president reiterates that he will not seek re-election

March 10, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir reiterated his position taken last year that he will not seek re-election.

“I will not run again and the general convention for the National Congress Party (NCP) will be held next year. It takes place every four years and the 2013 conference will be the rebuilding conference in which it will choose the next NCP chief who will in turn be the presidential candidate in 2015” Bashir told the Qatar-based al-Raya newspaper in an interview published Sunday.

Bashir, who came to power in a bloodless army coup in 1989, has been under pressure from members of his own party who are calling for deep reforms in the state and the NCP. Several memos have been reportedly submitted since last year by unidentified Islamists and other NCP members to the party’s leadership in this regard.

Bashir said in a TV interview last month that those behind the memos would be held accountable if their identity became known.

The NCP youth are also pushing for the party leadership to step down and pave way for younger generations to be at the top.

Bashir was confronted with these demands last year during a meeting with the NCP youth sector.

According to witnesses who attended the meeting, young NCP members berated the president over the level of corruption which had blighted the economy and the issue of injecting new blood in the party. Bashir promised among other things that the NCP would place an age limit of 60 on any leadership figure including him.

But the new cabinet formation announced last December disappointed many in the party particularly as it contained mostly the same names with several who have been in the government since 1989.

Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2009 for alleged war crimes committed in Darfur. The warrant, which has restricted his travel abroad, led many observers to believe that he will not cede power easily .

He won another five-year term in 2010 through elections that were plagued with irregularities and opposition boycotts but were nonetheless accepted by the international community.

So far Sudan has appeared immune from the Arab Spring sweeping the region even though security agencies shave stepped up their crackdown on activists and newspapers in recent months.

But the growing economic difficulties in Sudan fueled by the secession of the oil-rich south have encouraged many small protests to take place in the capital that were quickly dispersed by the police.

It remains to be seen whether Bashir will follow through on his promise not to run again.

In 2007, Bashir told the BBC’s Arabic radio service that Sudanese people get quickly bored by nature and that as such he wants to step down unless the NCP insists that he stays on.

Some NCP officials have suggested that it is not up to Bashir whether to be re-elected or not and that it will be the decision of the party not his own.

(ST)