Sudan’s NCP majority leader agrees to stand down
April 10, 2013 (KHARTOUM) – The former majority leader of the National Congress Party (NCP) at Sudan’s national assembly Ghazi Salah al-Deen al-Attabani agreed to comply with the party’s leadership decision to remove him from his post averting a widely expected showdown.
However, al-Attabani said that he has not formally received the decision to sack him from this position and as such he remains the head of the parliamentary bloc. His peers at the national assembly told the NCP deputy chairman this week that the leadership decision contravenes the party’s guidelines which says that they are to pick the majority leader out of three candidates presented to them.
The pick of Mahdi Ibrahim to replace al-Attabani has yet to be accepted by the NCP bloc.
al-Attabani told reporters he accepts the sacking decision he received yesterday before adding that saying that he rejects the NCP’s decree but at the same is pleased with bloc’s stance.
Ghazi, who seemed reticent in his responses, refused to answer questions from journalists saying he would respond to all of them at a later time.
He told reporters that he is not aware of any reasons for his dismissal, saying “Perhaps this is the problem of those who issued the decision” stressing that he wouldn’t resign from the parliament.
Some have speculated that the decision was prompted by al-Attabani’s remarks last week in which he said that Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir is constitutionally barred from running again for presidency.
The former presidential adviser also criticized the Islamic Movement (IM) which represents the ideological arm of the NCP saying that its role is now limited to serving the government and has no active role in society.
Last year al-Attabani withdrew his candidacy for Secretary General of the IM and left its convention last year due to what he saw as interferences by influential government figures who pushed through amendments he opposed.
At the time an NCP figure who closely followed the workings of the convention told Sudan Tribune that Al-Attabani pulled out after finding out that the NCP leadership has determined to choose someone else for that position.
(ST)