Umma Party freezes its FFC’s activities, calls for conference on Sudan’s transition
April 22, 2020 (KHARTOUM) – The National Umma Party (NUP) Wednesday has called on its partners in the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) to meet within two weeks to discuss ways to achieve democratic transition’s goals and decided to freeze its activities in the coalition until the meeting.
The NUP of Sadiq al-Mahdi during the past period was frustrated by its allies of the left forces that they had to work with to ensure the collapse of the former regime. Also, the party criticized the delay of the economic conference and blamed the armed groups for their excessive demands during the peace process.
In sum, the party which ruled the country during the last democratic regime before the 1989’s coup was not at ease in this coalition and warned several times that they may call for anticipated elections if things don’t go their way.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the NUP said spoke about multiple political divergences between the FFC forces and the interferences in the attribution of the civilian government. Also, it said that the lack of clear strategy in the peace talks paved the way for blackmail and exaggerated demands by the armed groups.
Therefore, the Umma Party called for a founding conference of the signatories the Declaration for Freedom and Change, “to study and adopt the new social contract to reform the structures of the transitional period to achieve its tasks mentioned in the Constitutional Document.”
“If our allies respond to this request within two weeks, we will meet at the founding conference to agree on reform. The failure to meet this requirement will force us to work to achieve the desired development and reform with all the national bodies from the FFC, the government and the Sovereign Council with its civil and military component,” further said the statement which was read by the party representative at a meeting of the FFC leadership council on Wednesday.
The statement further announced the party’ decision to freeze its activities in all the FFC structures and committee immediately.
Conference Agenda
Without indicating the agenda of the conference it calls for, the statement spokes about urgent tasks to be achieved to overcome the current pitfalls.
These tasks include the urgent formation of the legislative assembly and national commissions as provided in the transitional constitution.
“The peace process now underway in Juba will not lead to peace. A strategy for the peace process should be developed to ensures its comprehensiveness and commitment to the peace agenda, away from any partisan ambitions”.
The statement pointed to the need to schedule elections, starting with local elections, followed by state legislative assemblies and state governors elections, ending with the general elections at the end of the transitional period.
The NUP also called to hold the economic conference through videoconference system immediately.
In a tweet released on Wednesday, Minni Minnawi, head of Sudan Liberation Movement said that the Sudan Call alliance is holding a series of meeting nowadays to assess the alliance’s position in the FFC.
Besides the Sudanese Revolutionary Front, the alliance includes the NUP and the Sudanese Congress Party.
(ST)