Sudan opposition in rare call for protests

AFP/Khartoum  
Sudan’s political opposition has made a rare call for protests against President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his “illegitimate government” after a constitutional deadline for elections expired.
Bashir’s domestic opponents have kept a low profile since the International Criminal Court in March issued an arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes in Darfur where a civil war has raged for the past six years.
Islamist leader Hassan Turabi, Bashir’s former mentor turned would-be nemesis, was the only Sudanese politician to support the ICC move, a call for which he spent two months in jail.
But today, the opposition is not pulling its punches against Bashir or the national unity government led by his National Congress Party in partnership with former rebels from the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.
The latest complaints have nothing to do with the ICC, and are more about the Interim National Constitution adopted in July 2005 shortly after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed, ending the decades-long north-south civil war, Africa’s longest.
The constitution calls for elections—presidential and parliamentary—to be held by July 9, 2009. But the vote has now been pushed back to April 2010.
“That means the president is sitting illegally,” said Mubarak al-Fadil, who heads the key Umma opposition party. Bashir should now be a “caretaker” president pending new elections, he says.
But senior NCP strategist Ibrahim Gandoor points out that while the constitution calls for elections in July 2009, it “also says that the (president’s) term of office is (until) 9th July 2010.”
He also says that the vote has not been cancelled and “the election is a process and the process has started.”
Relations between the government and the Umma party have nosedived since it signed in Cairo last week a political agreement with the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the most active Darfur rebel group and Khartoum’s sworn enemy.
On Saturday, a grouping of 17 opposition organisations slammed the current government as “illegitimate” and called for a transition government until the elections, which several analysts admit could be delayed yet again.
“The opposition will call for political rallies in Khartoum and in the states’ capitals because of a lack of freedom and the illegitimacy of the government,” Fadil said, without saying when protests might be held.
Opposition leaders have “decided to hold rallies and face the consequences,” even if that means going to jail, said Fadil.
Gandoor says the opposition is simply trying to test the waters in the hope of rallying support from the southern SPLM. He says the government will “react” to any illegal activities from the opposition
The SPLM, meanwhile, is hedging its bets.
“This government is legitimate until the next elections,” said senior SPLM member Yasser Arman, but “the demand of the opposition for democratic transformation is also a legitimate one.”