Sudanese opposition leader says national dialogue will turn to bilateral deals

May 10, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – The head of the Reform Now Movement (RNM) opposition party in Sudan has expressed confidence in the possibility of seeing a “positive change” in the political arena despite attempts by many circles to abort it.

Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Attabani told Sudan Tribune in an interview on Sunday that some political and social forces, including those with links to the regime, who have no interest in seeing change are trying to prevent it.

He said his optimism in a forthcoming change stems from observing the “growing awareness, education and citizens’ cleverness in resistance and innovation”.

“We consider ourselves in RNM, a catalyst towards this goal, therefore in the long run I am optimistic and I see the possibility of building on these positive transformations and direct it to the right place.”

Al-Attabani described the general elections which were held last month and resulted in sweeping win to the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) as a “mistake”.

“I am sure it has been proven that the elections were a failure and do not reflect the true will of the Sudanese people,” he said of the polls that were marred by low turnout.

“The reality says that there is an ongoing war, a bad economic situation that has no prospects for solutions .. facts also speak for a troubled foreign relations” he added.

The former NCP official who was president Omer Hassan al-Bashir’s adviser stressed that the NCP cannot pretend that “there are no problems or that we are progressing, and we are gaining new grounds and succeeding ..This is self-deception”.

He scoffed at the government’s insistence that national dialogue cannot take place abroad calling it “an attempt to register fake positions,”.

The RNM chief asserted that the rebels themselves did not call for moving dialogue abroad but pushed for a procedural meeting outside the country to agree on groundwork for dialogue.

“Therefore, promoting this issue and creating a battle around it is a bogus tactic aimed at giving the impression that there is a patriotic position and a non-patriotic one. This is not true; the non- patriotic position is the one distorting and rejecting dialogue,” he said.

Al-Attabani said the national dialogue in its current form will result in “bilateral deals….not necessarily between NCP and Popular Congress Party (PCP) but the NCP wants to bring political forces to adopt its own position to form a government to earn the legitimacy”.

He emphasized out that RNM “does not reject the principle of dialogue, but would not accept it to be under the control of the NCP because the government and the NCP are parties to the conflict and therefore it does not make sense for them to dictate when the dialogue begins and when it ends”.

“This dialogue was stopped by the NCP before the elections and now has resumed by it after the elections .. They tried to change the 7+7 mechanism and this change is not recognized by the African dialogue mechanism nor by other political forces”.

“You can then judge after that.. Is what is happening a real political process containing pillars and principles that would lead to a national consensus between the political forces and re-establishment of a new structure for Sudanese politics or is it just a political process to gain imaginary legitimacy,” he wondered.

RNM suspended its participation in the national dialogue mechanism to protest the refusal of the ruling party to implement a number of measures related to the creation of a conducive environment for the process.

Al-Attabani also presented a self-assessment of the RNM a year after it was founded during which he acknowledged that the party faced difficulties in incorporation as well as financial ones but succeeded nevertheless in bringing about new movement in the political scene and establishing links with other powers.

“The biggest failure of the [RNM] movement was that the executive branch was not able to translate political gains to grassroots and organizational gains on the ground,” his paper stated.

He underscored that RNM is open to all Sudanese whether Islamists or secularists and only require personal integrity.

Al-Attabani was the head of the NCP parliamentary bloc but fell out with the party after he declared that Bashir is constitutionally barred from running again for presidency.

RNM was established as an offshoot from the NCP in late 2013 after a memorandum submitted by prominent NCP leaders protesting the killing of dozens of protesters in the September 2013 demonstrations against lifting fuel subsidies.

(ST)