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Sudan ruling party reformers to set up 'new party'
 [Al Ahram] Three leading reformers faced with expulsion from Sudan's ruling party have decided to form a new party following a deadly crackdown on protests last month, one of them said Saturday."We decided to establish a new party carrying the hopes of the Sudanese people," Fadlallah Ahmed Abdallah, an MP with the governing National Congress Party (NCP), told AFP. "We have already put in motion a plan to establish this party." The name and structure of the new organization will be revealed within one week, Abdallah added. On Thursday, an internal NCP investigative committee ruled that Abdallah, former sports minister Hassan Osman Riziq, and ex-presidential adviser Ghazi Salahuddin Atabani should be ousted after they signed a memorandum criticising the regime's crackdown on protests over price rises in September. Atabani was the lead signatory but 30 other prominent reformers also signed the memorandum sent to President Omar al-Bashir  Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it. that they made public. They charged the government's response to the demonstrations over fuel price hikes betrayed the regime's Islamic foundations. Abdallah, a former engineering commissioner in West Darfur state, said all the signatories of the memorandum planned to join the new party. "The members of parliament in our group are going to resign," he added. Atabani and Riziq also currently serve as NCP politicians. Abdallah said retired military officers who signed the memorandum will also join the new group. These include retired armed forces Brigadier Mohammed Ibrahim, who was sentenced to five years in prison in April for allegedly leading a coup plot against the regime last year. Bashir later granted amnesty to him and others involved. In their memorandum, the reformers made a series of recommendations, including for an independent probe of the shooting of civilians during the protests, and for a reversal of the price increases. Instead, they found themselves under investigation by the party. Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir, who led the internal probe, said Thursday that the NCP membership of Abdallah, Riziq and Atabani would be revoked if a 400-member party council gives final approval. He said six others who endorsed the memorandum had been suspended from party activities for one year. They violated party rules by setting up a "parallel organization" and by communicating with other political parties without NCP approval, Tahir said. He added that the memorandum came at an inappropriate time, on September 27, when security forces were struggling against "criminals" and party unity was required. "This was not a time to raise such a memorandum," said Tahir, who is speaker of parliament. Atabani told AFP on Monday that his party membership had already been suspended but the reformers would not back down. He said the NCP was spending too much time on "this minor internal issue at a time when the country is on the verge of collapse." Thousands of people, many of them Khartoum-area poor, erupted into the streets when the government cut fuel subsidies, forcing retail prices up by more than 60 percent. Dozens were killed. Bashir said the protests were part of an effort to end his 24-year rule, using "agents, thieves and hijackers". Posted by: Fred 2013-10-27 |
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