The yardstick of the Sudanese government's intentions towards opposition parties is whether it seriously desires to incorporate them in the political process or not. The Sudanese government this week made yet another attempt to court opposition groups, regulating the opposition's public activities, but the opposition sees this latest move as fraudulent and insincere. It will be a long, hard haul to woo opposition parties and solicit their support in overcoming Sudan's economic plight. They, in short, are suspicious of Khartoum's motives. Decree No 158 of 2014 passed by the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum headed by Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir to regulate the activities of Sudanese political parties was viewed as a hoax by leading opposition figures in Khartoum. “We reject this preposterous overture. It is meaningless and we have heard it all before,” Farouk Abu-Eissa, head of the Sudanese opposition umbrella group the National Consensus Forces, told Al-Ahram Weekly. Al-Bashir is regarded as instigating infighting among the South Sudanese political establishment. Officially, the Sudanese president is presenting himself as a mediator among the warring factions and political protagonists of South Sudan. The ruling party in South Sudan, the now internally divided and politically disunited Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), maintains close ties with its counterpart in the north, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N). The Sudanese opposition parties are particularly concerned about the ongoing wars currently ravaging peripheral regions such as Darfur, the Nuba Mountains in southern Kordofan and Blue Nile Province. These backwaters are virtually controlled by the SPLM-N. Aware that he is a much-maligned political figure among Sudanese opposition forces, Al-Bashir is operating ironically from the skewed perspective that unpopularity can liberate a leader. South Sudan separated from the north on 9 July 2011, after southerners voted overwhelmingly to secede in a referendum held in January 2011. And, Sudanese opposition parties blame Al-Bashir and his militant Islamist ideologues in the ruling National Congress Party in Khartoum for the secession of South Sudan. The benefits of South Sudan's secession were not spelt out by Al-Bashir for his people who have come to take the political catastrophe of separation from the South for granted. And, Al-Bashir denies having anything to do with the debacle. Sudan's two-decade civil war killed two million people and rendered four million homeless refugees. South Sudan President Salva Kiir, like his northern counterpart Al-Bashir, realises that populist presidents prosper when mainstream politicians do not challenge them. South Sudan itself is in political turmoil. Kiir now needs Al-Bashir as a political ally — an ironic twist of fate. The result of all this mess in both Khartoum and Juba is a field left clear for opposition parties. But, Kiir and Al-Bashir's newfound friendship will not go without rebuttal. The United Nations has warned that famine is imminent in South Sudan. Indeed, a recently released UN report indicates that the next two months are crucial and would require an injection of an estimated $230 million in international aid. “If this is not done quickly, South Sudan stands on the brink of the worst outbreak of starvation since the 1980s,” the report ominously warned. If the South Sudanese nascent political establishment sincerely desires a free and flourishing South Sudan then it must recognise that the state building project urgently requires peace. Peace is not a matter of choice but a supreme national necessity. Peace and prosperity go hand in hand. The UN report notes that a third of South Sudan's 11 million people face starvation. Heavily armed militants staged an attack on a United Nations peacekeepers' shelter that was housing scores of civilians in South Sudan last Thursday, killing at least 50 innocent civilians. South Sudan has descended into political chaos since mid-December when opposition forces loyal to ousted vice president Riek Machar tried to stage a coup to oust the South Sudanese President Salva Kiir. The UN report is a damning verdict on those South Sudanese politicians who have prospered by pillage in the war-torn country. Vicious infighting among the rank and file of the SPLM in South Sudan is tearing the country apart, but it is also strengthening ties between Juba and Khartoum. Other countries with close economic links with Sudan and South Sudan are dragged into the quagmire. Two Chinese engineers were abducted in Sudan's western Kordofan region. Such kidnappings and other disruptive activities are gaining momentum in both Sudan and South Sudan. Al-Bashir has made a plucky start in cultivating the Sudanese opposition's friendship, but will they accept the “democratic alternative programme” he proposes, cancelling laws restricting civil rights and personal freedoms and preparing the country for free and fair elections? The Sudanese opposition can scarcely believe that Al-Bashir is flirting with the notion of democratisation, as Abu Eissa so bluntly stated. Abu Eissa's status as a post-communist independent “democrat” enabled him to act as a bridge between a wide variety of political groups. “Al-Bashir's government has blood on its hands,” Abu Eissa elucidated. Yasser Arman, SPLM-N leader, concurred with Abu Eissa. “We want a new democratic dispensation in Sudan, one that offers full civil and citizenship rights to all of its people,” Arman told Al-Ahram Weekly. Both Arman and Abu Eissa stress that Al-Bashir and his government are illegitimate and its leaders are wanted for genocide and gross human rights violations by the International Criminal Court based in The Hague, the Netherlands. They both insist that international justice is prerequisite for peace in Sudan. Sceptically, they and other Sudanese political figures such as the leader of the opposition Popular Congress Party, the once political mentor of Al-Bashir, Sheikh Hassan Al-Turabi, believe that the Sudanese president will not persevere with his stated reform effort.
