Sudan opposition: ‘Election end Berlin Declaration’

The Sudanese opposition will stop their preparations for participating in the National Dialogue, if the general elections will take place in April. The preparatory meeting, they are planning to hold with the ruling party, aims to put these elections on hold.

Yasir Arman, the Secretary-General of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) and Foreign Relations Secretary of the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) stated that he considers the holding of the upcoming elections an end for the recently signed Berlin Declaration.

The Berlin Declaration is the conclusion of a conference in Germany last week, held between the rebel SRF, the National Umma Party, the National Consensus Forces coalition, and the Civil Society Initiative, in which the signatories set out their position on the National Dialogue process. They are prepared to discuss the requirements and procedures of the National Dialogue with the ruling National Congress Party in a preliminary dialogue.

SPLM-N Secretary-General Arman said in his remarks to Dabanga that their declaration would expire on 13 July 2015, in the event that Omar Al Bashir is still President of Sudan. He considered the national constitutional dialogue posed by the forces of the Sudan Appeal as “a dialogue of the last chance”.

He confirmed that the preparatory meeting to be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is related to stopping the elections. Arman added: “There will be no meeting in the event the elections are held and the opposition will totally head to overthrow the regime through a peaceful popular uprising.”

The Information Minister, Ahmed Bilal Osman, commented last Friday that the latest opposition document will not affect the National Dialogue process, to be held between Sudan's political parties, and the elections. The opposition forces have repeatedly called for a postponement of Sudan’s elections.