Sudan’s rebels, international Muslim scholars tell Al Bashir to leave

The Sudanese rebel coalition, as well as the International Union of Muslim Scholars strongly condemned the re-nomination of President Omar Al Bashir as presidential candidate for the upcoming April 2015 elections. The leader of the National Umma Party denounced the candidacy in a letter to the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). El Tom Hajo, co-vice president of the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF, a coalition of the main rebel movements) told Radio Dabanga that the nomination of Al Bashir by the NCP’s Shura Council “proves that the Khartoum regime is will continue to neglect the views and opinions of the Sudanese.” The rebel leader pointed to what Al Bashir had stated after he was nominated. “The gang leader of our country vowed to fight ‘all predators and hatemongers’ in the country, even to eliminate the power centres within the NCP. This kind of talk proves, among other things, that nothing will change in Sudan next year. The president and his corrupt ruling gang will continue pillaging the country, killing and torturing the Sudanese population, and violating the Constitution, Sudanese laws, and international agreements, as they have been doing continuously since they came to power in 1989. “Al Bashir’s nomination means the death of the National Dialogue”, Hajo stressed, “as it definitely proves that the NCP is unable to carry out reforms, and bring forward new leaders, or accept others than themselves. “In fact, it is an explicit call for all the opposition forces, civil society organisations, and other sectors of the Sudanese community, to unite, and resort to all available means to get rid of this gang before they entirely destroy our homeland.” Muslim Scholars The co-vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Sheikh Ahmed Al Raisuni, called on President Omar Al Bashir and his party to leave the government. He strongly condemned the NCP’s controlling of the country by means of army and security forces, in a statement issued recently.“They should leave because they seized power through a military coup against an elected legitimate government,” the prominent Moroccan Muslim scholar said. “Al Bashir and his party have spent in a quarter of a century in power. It seems that they aspire to extend their rule indefinitely. This is usually done by dictatorial means, and imposed as a fait accompli, through predetermined elections. This and the so-called overwhelming support by the people, we know well enough from history, from former and current presidents like Jaafar Nimeiri, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar El Sadat, Hosni Mubarak, Abdelfattah El Sisi, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Hafez El Assad, Bashar El Assad [..].” ‘Under the cloak of Islam’ The leader of the National Umma Party, El Sadig El Mahdi, has sent a letter to the leaders of the NCP, in which he accuses them of attempting to “clone the 2010 elections. The 2010 elections”, El Mahdi stated, “were characterised by bribery, control over the media, and widespread fraud. “The leaders of the ruling party took power in 1989 under the cloak of Islam. They said they came as a salvation to the country. Yet, after a quarter of a century of absolute rule, the Sudanese society has been driven in a direction that is far from Islamic values. The country has been split, and war has spread to large parts of Sudan. The economy is on the verge of collapse, and the level of international isolation is unprecedented.” File photo: President Omar Al Bashir speaking at a rally in Khartoum, May 2012 Related:’Al Bashir nomination complicates Sudan’s crises’: opposition (24 October 2014) Al Bashir NCP candidate for Sudan’s 2015 elections (22 October 2014)