Sudan’s Bashir says next government restricted to parties participating in the elections
January 7, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir today warned that the next national government will be formed only from political parties participating in the upcoming elections.
Bashir, who addressed a meeting of the National Congress Party (NCP) students’ secretariat on Wednesday, stressed his party’s keenness to broaden participation in the parliament in order to enable it to draft the permanent constitution.
He announced that the NCP will not run in 30% of the electoral constituencies in order to allow other political forces to be represented in the parliament.
Bashir described the justification provided by the political forces which decided to boycott the upcoming elections as “weak”, noting that the same political forces participated in preparation of the elections law and formation of the electoral commission.
Sudan’s general elections are set to be held in April 2015, but opposition parties are refusing to participate saying the NCP holds absolute control over power and refuses to make any compromise to end the civil war and allow public liberties.
They have proposed forming a transitional government and holding a national conference with the participation of rebel groups to discuss a peaceful solution for the conflicts in Darfur region, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile states.
The interim government, in accordance with the opposition platform, would organize general elections once a political agreement on constitutional matters is reached, inaugurating a new democratic regime.
The NCP rejects this proposal saying opposition parties must simply prepare for the 2015 elections and that rebels should sign first peace accords before to join the political process.
NCP NOMINATIONS
Meanwhile, presidential assistant and NCP deputy chairman, Ibrahim Ghandour, said in a press conference on Wednesday the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) led by Mohamed Osman al-Mirghani has notified his party of its participation in the elections.
He said that the NCP will officially nominate Bashir for presidency on the opening day of nominations which is set for January 11th saying that a national committee will nominate Bashir.
Ghandour said that Bashir’s nomination was endorsed by 23,000 voters while the National Elections Commission (NEC) stipulates that presidential nominees must be endorsed by a minimum of 15,000 voters.
The NEC had earlier said that names of presidential nominees along with women and political parties’ lists of nominees will be placed on the ballot paper according to the primacy of completing nomination procedures.
The NCP official underscored his party selected its nominees for the geographic constituencies and proportional representation lists following six weeks of extensive consultations.
He pointed some of these constituencies include Gessan in the Blue Nile state, Um-Jeradil in Central Darfur state and al-Uddaya and al-Majrour in West Kordofan state.
He stressed that 53% of the NCP nominees will run for the first time, emphasizing they would not hesitate to apply the statute against any NCP member who decides to run in the elections independently.
“Any member who does so will be dismissed from the party”, he added.
The NCP’s list of nominees in the geographic constituencies has not included names of the current state governors while names of five executive ministers have appeared on the list including minister of investment Mustafa Osman Ismail, finance minister Badr el-Din Mahmoud, state minister at the information ministry Yasser Youssef and the foreign minister Ali Karti.
The nominees for the geographic constituencies also included the current parliament speaker al-Fatih Izz al-Din, former oil minister Awad Ahmed al-Jaz, former justice minister Abdel-Basit Sabdarat, former vice president, al-Haj Adam Youssef, deputy speaker of the parliament Issa Bashari, former South Darfur governor al-Haj Atta al-Mannan and former director of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) Salah Gosh.
The NCP proportional representation list included the first vice president Bakri Hassan Salih, former first vice president Ali Osman Taha, presidential assistant Ibrahim Ghandour, former NCP secretary general Ibrahim Ahmed Omer, former presidential assistant Amin Hassan Omer besides Sir al-Khatim al-Mirghani, Joseph Makin and Mohamed Abdel-Karim al-Had.
(ST)