Khartoum: Sudanese opposition parties condemned pressures by Islamists parties and groups to adopt an Islamic constitution in Sudan after the secession of South Sudan last July.
The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood, Salafi Ansar Al-Suna, the far-right Just Peace Forum (JPF) and a number of Sufi groups held a founding meeting for the Islamic Constitution Front on Tuesday. Personalities from some opposition parties and the ruling National Congress Party attended the event.
The Popular Congress Party (PCP) of Hassan al-Turabi was quick to dissociate itself from the radical coalition and its deputy secretary general Abdallah Hassan Ahmed stressed that he was at the launch meeting in a personal capacity.
In a statement released on Thursday the National Consensus Forces further condemned the gathering of Sudanese Islamists and accused the ruling National Congress Party of seeking - through extremists and radical groups - to impose the Sharia laws.
"After more than twenty years of suffering and while the country is experiencing a comprehensive crisis, the National Congress Party seeks to repeat the experience of religious fanaticism, and emergency and inquisition courts through a new alliance with the ‘Takfiri’, and advocates of sedition and fragmentation of the country" on ethnic, religious and regional basis, the opposition said.
The opposition parties further said they are now facing a new coalition of "corrupt tyrants and fanatics" who seek to prolong their survival through the use of religion.
The opposition, which says it is committed to a secular state and the exclusion of religion from political affairs, vowed to use all the democratic and peaceful means to remove the regime and build a democratic and plural regime in Sudan.
The national consensus urged all the Sudanese people to resist the calls of the extremist forces and to work with the national forces to achieve a true democratic transition.
Sudanese president Omer al-Bashir and head of the ruling National Congress Party has pledged at different times that the Islamic law would be the main source of the next constitution. However, he has engaged in a dialogue with the two main opposition forces in the country.
The Umma party of Sadiq al-Mahdi refused to join a coalition government with the NCP asking to form a national government and to reach negotiated settlement with the South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur rebellions. But the Democratic Unionist Party of Mohamed Osman al-Mirghani is participating in the coalition government saying Sudan’s integrity is at risk.
The government, on the other hand, refuses to associate the PCP of Turabi and the Communist party in the consultations accusing them of seeking to topple the regime with the Sudan’s many rebel groups in peripheral areas.
Picture: Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in prayer after winning national elections in 2010. Photo: Reuters.
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