Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir has won the nomination of his ruling party, the National Congress Party (NCP), for the next presidential elections, slated for April 2015. He may be facing international accusations of war crimes, but the man who came to power through an Islamist-backed military coup in 1989 is still determined to lead his war-torn, divided and impoverished country. Al-Bashir's candidacy, his critics say, is in violation of the constitution, which limits each president to two five-year terms. He had promised more than once to refrain from running for the country's top post. But unless he holds on to power, Al-Bashir may end up facing trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Among the president's top aides, there are only a handful of men whom he can trust. The ICC charged Al-Bashir with “masterminding” mass murder, rape, and other atrocities during the Darfur conflict. According to UN estimates, nearly 300,000 perished in Darfur during 10 years of fighting. This figure was exaggerated, Al-Bashir claimed in a recent interview with the Doha-based Al Jazeera television station. The Sudanese president put the death toll at 10,000. Nearly two million people were displaced during the Darfur conflict, which was complicated with ethnic strife and interspersed with what observers described as acts of genocide. Waddah Tayer, coordinator of the Arab Union for Darfur, said that the recent appearance by Kenya's Uhuru Kenyatta at a landmark ICC hearing made Al-Bashir feel particularly vulnerable. Kenyatta, the first serving president to agree to submit to an ICC investigation concerning war crimes, says that the charges against him were “politically motivated”. Kenyatta is suspected of involvement in murder, displacement, rape, and other atrocities that followed the 2007 elections. The turmoil in Kenya claimed over 1,000 lives and led to the displacement of 600,000 people. When Al-Bashir dismissed two of his top Islamist aides, Vice President Ali Osman Taha and Presidential Assistant Nafie Ali Nafie, he was quick to replace them with military men, a move that shows that he now trusts only the army. Hasan Saleh and Abdel Rahim Hosein, appointed vice president and defence minister respectively, were both members of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) that staged the 1989 coup, said activist Magdi Al-Nayim. At one point, Al-Bashir seemed willing, if the ICC were to drop the charges against him, to step down and allow his vice president to take his place. Western think tanks encouraged such a move on the grounds of preventing further turmoil in Sudan. But this wasn't to be, noted journalist Fayez Al-Sheikh. According to the US Institute of Peace, a “soft landing” could have been arranged for Al-Bashir, had he opted to leave his post without further ado. But the NCP's nomination of Al-Bashir as presidential candidate has ended all speculation in this regard. The move, observers say, is a sign that the Sudanese president does not trust anyone outside a narrowing circle of associates. Under Al-Bashir's rule, Sudan lost one third of its territories and almost a quarter of its population when South Sudan voted in a referendum to separate in 2011. Nearly two million people are believed to have been killed in ethnic and sectarian strife in the country in the long civil war that preceded the referendum. In 2010, during an NCP youth conference, Al-Bashir promised not to run again for president. Similar promises were made in 2011 after the Arab Spring revolts, and again in 2013 after student protests. But Al-Bashir, who is said to be having health problems, apparently doesn't feel bound by such promises. Over the past few months, several of the president's associates have tried to remove him from power. Brigadier General Salah Qush was sentenced to death and then pardoned following a failed coup attempt. For a while, Ali Taha and Nafie Ali Nafie seemed to be competing for the country's top post, until Al-Bashir pushed both from power just under a year ago. According to a recent statement by the Sudanese Revolutionary Front, Al-Bashir won the nomination with 266 votes in favour out of 396 votes in the NCP's Shura Council — about 60 per cent of the total number of NCP members who voted. Nearly 300 of the 700-member Shura Council didn't attend the voting session, said activist Alaaeddin Abu Madien. Former vice president Taha, current Vice President Bakri Saleh, former presidential assistant Nafie, and current Presidential Assistant Ibrahim Ghandour also tried to get the NCP nomination for the presidency. Altom Hagu, a member of the opposition Sudanese Revolutionary Front, believes that Al-Bashir will become even more heavy-handed now that he has the nomination. To stay in power, Al-Bashir will have to overhaul the entire security service, Hagu said. Al-Bashir started his rule as head of the RCC in 1989. He became president in 1996 after winning elections that were marred with fraud. He became interim president after signing the Comprehensive Peace Treaty with southern Sudanese rebels in 2005, and went on to win the 2010 presidential elections.
