Toppling Bashir’s regime by force would lead to endless violence in Sudan: Mahdi

December 28, 2013 (KHARTOUM) – The leader of Sudan’s opposition National Umma Party (NUP), Al-Sadig Al-Mahdi has warned against toppling the regime by military force and called for making peaceful change through national consensus.

The former prime minister said in a talk show broadcasted by the state-run Radio Omdurman on Friday that “Sudan is at crossroads”, stressing that any attempt to overthrow the regime by force would lead to an endless cycle of violence.

Al-Mahdi added that Sudan looks forward to achieving full democratic transformation and comprehensive and just peace. He pointed out that “removing the current regime by force would lead to a situation similar to that is of Syria, calling for achieving change through soft power”.

The opposition leader who is known for his rejection to the use of arms to topple down the regime attempted last November to meet with Sudanese rebels in Kampala but the Ugandan government declined to give him a visa.

The groups of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front say they want a comprehensive process leading to dismantle Bashir’s regime but however they doubt that the government can accept such demand unless it is militarily defeated.

Alluding to the position of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) rejecting his initiative for a holistic process including rebel movements, Al-Mahdi demanded all parties to abandon partisanship and seek to achieve a balanced equation of democratic governance and just and comprehensive peace.

The ruling NCP and the Umma party held talks in the past months over democratic transition in the past months but all the former offered to the latter is to participate in a coalition government and to give the opposition party an important number of ministerial posts.

The leader of the NUP laid out features of what he called the new national political regime to overcome the political crisis, saying that “we have to recognise and address the crisis and offer the right diagnosis”.

“The new political regime emulates the South African experience through a consensual road map”, he further added.

Al-Mahadi on Wednesday called for establishing a new regime and organising public pressure, protests, and sit-ins to force the regime to engage in a road map for achieving comprehensive and just peace and democratic transformation similar to that which took place in South Africa in 1992 or through a peaceful popular uprising.

He said that the new regime should take into account the developments in the system of governance, political parties, trade unions, civil society organizations, and the role of woman in society.

(ST)