Sudan's People Liberation Movement
(SPLM) has dismissed as a ploy President Omar Hassan Bashir's call for
dialogue.
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The President called for dialogue Monday in parliament to prevent
violence in the April 2010 general election.
But the SPLM accused President
Bashir and his National Congress Party of attempting to
re-negotiate the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
As part of
the CPA, Sudan will hold presidential, parliamentary and local
elections next year, its first general vote since 1986.
Yasser Arman,
the deputy general secretary of the SPLM said that
President Bashir needs to act rather than make promises.
"Usually,
we welcome a call for dialogue. It is not the first call, but we don't need to
renegotiate the agreement. We already signed agreement with the National
Congress; we have had the schedule (and) we need them to implement the
agreement," Arman said.
He
said deeds not words are what the SPLM expects from the NCP.
"Whatever
they are saying, what matters for us is the action more than the words," he
said.
President
Bashir said Monday that it was important to have an election without violence
claiming that "there is need for dialogue to reach a positive climate to hold
elections," Bashir said.
But
Arman said embracing the true tenets of democracy is the only way
to prevent violence in next year's election.
"If you want to avoid
violence in the elections, you have to resort to democracy and democratization.
And in Sudan, after four years of the agreement, we did not pass the necessary
laws, the penal code and other important law for democratization freedom for
fair elections," Arman said.
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He said there should also be
reconciliation ahead of the election.
"If we do not want the
experiences like Zimbabwe or Iran, we need to really go for democracy, for
reconciliation between our people to resolve the Darfur crisis. That is what is
needed in order to avoid violence," he said.
Political observers believe
the opposition's threat to boycotting next year's general election prompted
President Bashir's call for dialogue.
Arman said the meeting of
opposition parties was to critically examine their options available ahead of
the election.
"We had wanted them to come
together with other political forces so that we level the ground to have a
healthy environment for elections," Arman said.
He said the Southern
Sudanese government is not against next year's vote.
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"As the SPLM, we are for the
elections and we see the election as one of the fundamental articles of the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement…but the National Congress wants an election in a
totalitarian system. Keeping the old system and this will not take us to a free
and fair election," he said.
Arman said Juba is
frustrated with the lack of political will from its northern partners in the
implementation of the CPA.
"We are satisfied with the
U.S intervention, but we are not satisfied with the results because the
National Congress is buying time. They are not implementing what we agreed (to)
and they want to re-negotiate the agreement," Arman said.
The SPLM has often accused
the NCP of failing to fully implement the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement
which ended Sudan's over two decade civil war between the North and South.
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