Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2014 21:03:49 +0100
Clinging to power
Sudan's Al-Bashir reneges on past promises and accepts the ruling party's
nomination for next year's presidential elections. But it appears his allies
are dwindling, writes Haytham Nuri
Friday,07 November, 2014
He may be facing international accusations of war crimes, but the man who
came to power through an Islamist-backed military coup in 1989 is still
determined to lead his war-torn, divided and impoverished country.
Al-Bashir's candidacy, his critics say, is in violation of the constitution,
which limits each president to two five-year terms. He had promised more
than once to refrain from running for the country's top post. But unless he
holds on to power, Al-Bashir may end up facing trial at the International
Criminal Court (ICC). Among the president's top aides, there are only a
handful of men whom he can trust.
The ICC charged Al-Bashir with "masterminding" mass murder, rape, and other
atrocities during the Darfur conflict.
According to UN estimates, nearly 300,000 perished in Darfur during 10 years
of fighting. This figure was exaggerated, Al-Bashir claimed in a recent
interview with the Doha-based Al Jazeera television station. The Sudanese
president put the death toll at 10,000.
Nearly two million people were displaced during the Darfur conflict, which
was complicated with ethnic strife and interspersed with what observers
described as acts of genocide.
Waddah Tayer, coordinator of the Arab Union for Darfur, said that the recent
appearance by Kenya's Uhuru Kenyatta at a landmark ICC hearing made
Al-Bashir feel particularly vulnerable. Kenyatta, the first serving
president to agree to submit to an ICC investigation concerning war crimes,
says that the charges against him were "politically motivated".
Kenyatta is suspected of involvement in murder, displacement, rape, and
other atrocities that followed the 2007 elections. The turmoil in Kenya
claimed over 1,000 lives and led to the displacement of 600,000 people.
When Al-Bashir dismissed two of his top Islamist aides, Vice President Ali
Osman Taha and Presidential Assistant Nafie Ali Nafie, he was quick to
replace them with military men, a move that shows that he now trusts only
the army.
Hasan Saleh and Abdel Rahim Hosein, appointed vice president and defence
minister respectively, were both members of the Revolutionary Command
Council (RCC) that staged the 1989 coup, said activist Magdi Al-Nayim.
At one point, Al-Bashir seemed willing, if the ICC were to drop the charges
against him, to step down and allow his vice president to take his place.
Western think tanks encouraged such a move on the grounds of preventing
further turmoil in Sudan. But this wasn't to be, noted journalist Fayez
Al-Sheikh.
According to the US Institute of Peace, a "soft landing" could have been
arranged for Al-Bashir, had he opted to leave his post without further ado.
But the NCP's nomination of Al-Bashir as presidential candidate has ended
all speculation in this regard. The move, observers say, is a sign that the
Sudanese president does not trust anyone outside a narrowing circle of
associates.
Under Al-Bashir's rule, Sudan lost one third of its territories and almost a
quarter of its population when South Sudan voted in a referendum to separate
in 2011. Nearly two million people are believed to have been killed in
ethnic and sectarian strife in the country in the long civil war that
preceded the referendum.
In 2010, during an NCP youth conference, Al-Bashir promised not to run again
for president. Similar promises were made in 2011 after the Arab Spring
revolts, and again in 2013 after student protests. But Al-Bashir, who is
said to be having health problems, apparently doesn't feel bound by such
promises.
Over the past few months, several of the president's associates have tried
to remove him from power. Brigadier General Salah Qush was sentenced to
death and then pardoned following a failed coup attempt.
For a while, Ali Taha and Nafie Ali Nafie seemed to be competing for the
country's top post, until Al-Bashir pushed both from power just under a year
ago.
According to a recent statement by the Sudanese Revolutionary Front,
Al-Bashir won the nomination with 266 votes in favour out of 396 votes in
the NCP's Shura Council - about 60 per cent of the total number of NCP
members who voted. Nearly 300 of the 700-member Shura Council didn't attend
the voting session, said activist Alaaeddin Abu Madien.
Former vice president Taha, current Vice President Bakri Saleh, former
presidential assistant Nafie, and current Presidential Assistant Ibrahim
Ghandour also tried to get the NCP nomination for the presidency.
Altom Hagu, a member of the opposition Sudanese Revolutionary Front,
believes that Al-Bashir will become even more heavy-handed now that he has
the nomination. To stay in power, Al-Bashir will have to overhaul the entire
security service, Hagu said.
Al-Bashir started his rule as head of the RCC in 1989. He became president
in 1996 after winning elections that were marred with fraud. He became
interim president after signing the Comprehensive Peace Treaty with southern
Sudanese rebels in 2005, and went on to win the 2010 presidential elections.
Clinging to power
Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir has won the nomination of his ruling
party, the National Congress Party (NCP), for the next presidential
elections, slated for April 2015.
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