Darfur NLJP dissidents form new party

A large group of members of the National Liberation and Justice Party (NLJP), headed by Dr El Tijani Sese, submitted their resignation last week.

The chairman of the parting group, Mohamed Hamdan El Semeih, said in a press conference on Sunday that they decided to resign because of a lack of democracy in the party.

He announced that the dissidents, existing of 36 senior leaders and 712 founding members, formed a new party, the Freedom Party.

LJM-NLJM

Sese formed the National Liberation and Justice Movement (NLJM) and registered the NLJP in February this year, after he was ousted as chairman of the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM) in January. Prominent LJM members, headed by federal Health Minister Bahar Idris Abu Garda, had repeatedly accused Sese of nepotism and fraud.

The LJM, formed in 2010 by 19 breakaway factions of the main Darfur rebel movements, was the first 'rebel movement' that signed the 2011 Doha Document of Peace in Darfur (DDPD) with the Sudanese government. Sese became head of the Darfur Regional Authority (DRA) in 2012.

Also in his function as DRA head, Sese has been accused of corruption and dictatorship. Abu Garda, elected as successor of Sese as chairman of the LJM, called in August on “the people of Darfur to remove Sese as DRA president as he has failed to implement early recovery projects, and is responsible for the rampant corruption in the DDPD’s Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) programme”.

“Sese is in control of the Authority’s supervisory board and has stripped the DRA Ministers of all powers. The Council of Ministers has held only four meetings throughout its four-year term. The last one took place eight months ago,” he said.