Opposition rips Sudan deal

From combined dispatches

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Islamist opposition leader Hassan Turabi lashed out yesterday at Sudan’s new power-sharing arrangement that put a final seal on a north-south peace deal, saying it failed to represent the country’s political forces.

“I am not objecting to southern representation. They deserve it because they have been disadvantaged for so long; it is the other 52 percent,” Mr. Turabi told Agence France-Presse.

Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir signed a new constitution on Saturday in accordance with a January peace agreement with the former southern rebel group Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army (SPLA).

The deal, which was later enshrined in the constitution, grants Mr. el-Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party 52 percent of executive posts and legislative seats and the SPLA 28 percent.

“No constitution in the world ever wrote in the letter a majority for a party,” said Mr. Turabi, who was Mr. el-Bashir’s one-time mentor and has been on the offensive since he was freed from 15 months in detention on July 30.

“That was bad. They want to control absolutely any amendments.”

In line with the peace deal, Mr. el-Bashir will stay on as president and SPLA chief John Garang was sworn in as first vice president on Saturday. They will keep their jobs at least until general elections are held in four years.

In addition, 14 percent of the remaining executive posts and legislative seats will go to northern opposition parties and 6 percent will be split among other southern groups.

Mr. Turabi argued that arrangement was not fair.

“The two major parties that have governed Sudan … are misrepresented,” he said, referring to the country’s two largest traditional parties — the Umma Party of former Prime Minister Imam Sadiq al-Mahdi and the Democratic Unionist Party of Mohammed Osman al-Mirghani.

Both Mr. Turabi’s Popular Congress and Mr. al-Mahdi’s Umma Party have announced that they will not participate in Sudan’s new national unity government.

Mr. al-Mirghani’s party, which is part of Sudan’s largest opposition bloc, the National Democratic Alliance, signed the peace deal last month and participated in drafting the new constitution.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack congratulated Sudan’s people and leaders for the new government and constitution.

“The Sudanese people and their leaders now have an opportunity to create a future of peace, reconciliation, democracy and development,” the Associated Press quoted him as saying.

Joint north-south rule could end after the six-year interim period stipulated in the deal. In 2011, southern Sudan is set to vote by referendum on whether it wants to secede from the rest of the country.

Rebels in the mainly Christian and animist south had fought Sudan’s Islamic-oriented government’s forces since 1983. The conflict killed more than 2 million people, mainly through war-induced famine.