NCP splinter faction rules out possibility of return to Sudan’s ruling party

January 14, 2014 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese Reform Now Party (RNP) led by former presidential advisor, Ghazi Salah al-Deen al-Attabani, which has recently split from the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) refused to engage in proposed dialogue which is aimed at making them rejoin their former party.

Al-Attabani was expelled from the NCP last October in the wake of a memo he drafted, along with more than two dozen party figures the month before, calling for the reversal of a decision to lift fuel subsidies and an end to the violent measures taken against demonstrators who took to the streets to protest.

The RNP said in a press release on Tuesday that if the NCP seeks to initiate the dialogue in order to return its former members who joined RNP ranks, then this will not happen because “the wheel of history doesn’t turn back”.

Several newspapers have recently quoted the NCP head of the Shura (consultative) council, Abu Ali Majzoub, as saying that his party had set up committees to engage in dialogue with the RNP and the opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) led by Hassan Al-Turabi.

Turabi split from the NCP in 1999 following a bitter power struggle with president, Omer Hassan Al-Bashir. He later established the PCP and has since been a vociferous critic of the very regime for which he orchestrated the army-backed seizure of power in 1989.

The press release added that RNP is a broad popular trend which includes members from the entire political spectrum, stressing that majority of them were not former members of the NCP.

However, the RNP welcomed dialogue with all political forces “from the far right to the far left” including the NCP in order to agree on a minimum level of national principles and get the country out of the current impasse.

“We extend our hands to the loyal Sudanese in order to achieve freedom, Shura, and social justice”, it added.

(ST)