Sudan’s al-Bashir failed to form lean government: allied forces
March 24, 2019 (KHARTOUM) – A coalition of groups allied to the Sudanese government, the 2020 Forces, criticised the newly formed government pointing that President Omer al-Bashir failed to observe his pledge to form a lean government.
On 22 February, President al-Bashir dissolved the government and declared the imposition of the state of emergency in a bid to end the anti-government protest movement. Also, he vowed to form a small government with qualified ministers to deal with economic difficulties the country is facing.
In a statement released on Sunday, the 2020 Forces led by al-Tayeb Mustafa said disappointed by the formation of the new government and added the new cabinet is dominated by ministers from the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and includes too many presidential assistants.
“The government does not bring any changes, neither in terms of its number of ministers nor in terms of its composition. It has become bigger than before,” he said. “The number of presidential aides has increased to seven after the street hoped to reduce their number or even to cancel them,” reads the statement.
On 21 March, President al-Bashir appointed the new NCP leader Ahmed Haroun, as presidential assistant together with the former minister al-Sadiq al-Hadi al-Mahdi, who is also appointed a presidential assistant.
Also, he reinstated Faisal Hassan Ibrahim in his position as a presidential assistant.
The appointments “did not stop at the level of the government, but the successive presidential decisions (…) continued to announce the appointment of people in high positions in a way to increase the crisis and reflect the continuation of the policy of quotas and satisfactions that hurt our country and burdened it.”
The coalition called to stop the policy of NCP’s empowerment in the institutions of the Sudanese state as it was the case before the 22 February.
The statement further urged al-Bashir to abide by what he promised as President of all Sudanese and to implement political and economic reforms.
(ST)
