Sudan’s Umma breakaway party splinters

By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM, Oct 13 (Reuters) – The party of a top Sudanese presidential aide dismissed last week has splintered over whether to stay allied to the government which fired their leader, ministers and senior party officials said on Wednesday.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir issued a decree last Wednesday dismissing Mubarak al-Fadil al-Mahdi, one of his top advisors and the head of the Umma breakaway party, which joined the government about two years ago.

The party held about nine ministerial and senior posts as well as about 25 lesser governmental positions.

But in the debate over whether to continue the party’s participation in Bashir’s government after the sudden dismissal of Mahdi last week, a number of officials rebelled against their leader, refusing to quit their posts.

“It is not an optimal time to be leaving the government when we are moving towards peace in Sudan,” Minister of International Cooperation Youssef Tekena told Reuters.

“Why leave the government now when we have a platform to help our people from?” he added.

Tekena is from the remote western Darfur region, traumatised by fighting during a 20-month-old rebellion.

He and about nine other senior officials from the party told reporters on Wednesday they were staying with the government.

They declared Mubarak al-Mahdi’s actions in proposing to cut relations with the government and dismissing the deputy secretary-general of the party as illegal.

“This is illegal according to the party constitution,” Tekena said. “He should hold an extraordinary general party congress to make decisions like these.”

Tekena said about half the party officials were with his faction and added he expected Mahdi to issue a statement dismissing all of his allies in the near future. “But this is illegal so we don’t recognise it,” he added.

Government officials said Mahdi’s dismissal was over differences of opinion but Mahdi said powerful First Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha had him dismissed because he objected to Taha and a small group’s dominance of policy-making.

The government, which says it has uncovered three attempts to destabilise it in the past six months, is weakened and divided over how to respond to international demands that it stop the Darfur conflict, analysts say.

Mubarak al-Mahdi split from former Prime Minister and mainstream Umma Party leader Sadiq al-Mahdi before joining the government, causing a deep rift between the two cousins.

Analysts said the government, also in talks to woo back exiled opposition parties in Cairo, could be seeking a reconciliation with Sadiq al-Mahdi, the last democratically elected leader of Sudan. Sadiq al-Mahdi was overthrown by Bashir in a bloodless coup in 1989.