Sudan opposition criticizes constitution
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-11 08:53

The leader of Sudan's main opposition party criticized the new interim constitution as deficient on Sunday and said he was forming an alliance with a leading Islamist figure to monitor the freshly sworn-in government.

The constitution was signed into being on Saturday following the swearing in of the former rebel leader John Garang as Sudan's first southern and Christian vice president.

On Sunday, former Prime Minister Imam Sadiq al-Mahdi said he welcomed the power and wealth-sharing rights gained by southern Sudanese in the peace deal that led to the formation of the new government and the interim constitution. But he criticized the constitution itself, saying it was a bilateral pact that did not include other groups.

Sudanese former prime minister and chairman of the Umma Party, Imam Sadiq al-Mahdi holds a press conference in Khartoum, Sunday, July 10, 2005. [AP]

"We think it is a deficient constitution in many ways," al-Mahdi, who heads the opposition Umma Party, told a news conference.

"The constitution lays a ceiling in terms of participation in power, participation in wealth, and so on. This ceiling is unacceptable because there are many problems now in the east, in the west and other parts of the Sudan," he said.

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

The interim constitution allocates 52 percent of government and parliament posts to the ruling National Congress Party, headed by President Omar el-Bashir. Garang's Sudan People's Liberation Movement was given 28 percent of the power, and northern and southern opposition parties take the remaining 20 percent.

"The percentage for our participation and contribution that has been earmarked is infinitesimal and will simply make you take responsibility without power," al-Mahdi said.

Al-Mahdi said those left out of the power-sharing system would side with the opposition in "monitoring the developments in Sudan, particularly in terms of oppression and corruption."

Al-Mahdi said he was planning to form an opposition alliance with Hasan Turabi, a leading Islamic figure and former el-Bashir strongman who was released from house arrest late June ahead of the new government's formation.

In Washington, US 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," he said.

The constitution moves Sudan away from complete Islamic rule, saying those in the mainly Christian and animist south will not be held to Muslim laws. It also removes a requirement that the president be Muslim.

Thousands of Christians celebrated the new government at churches in southern Sudan on Sudan. Residents of the city of Juba who spoke to The Associated Press in Khartoum said the sermon at All Saints Cathedral was packed jubilant worshippers.

"Sudan has now entered a new era," the Rev. Eluzai Lemi Manas said in his sermon. "The government of lies and oppression ended on the 8th of July, hallelujah, hallelujah."

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