Sudan
Mohamed Osman in Khartoum
Sudanese president Omar el-Bashir on Sunday declared a three-month state of emergency, and state-run television said he was dissolving Parliament.
Bashir said:”There are dangers against the country from abroad, and internal problems that will aggravate the country’s problems will not be allowed. In order to preserve the unity of the country and its coherence, we declare a state of emergency in all parts of the country and for a period of three months.”
The declaration may stem from recent friction between Bashir and Sudan’s powerful speaker of Parliament, Hassan Turabi. Over the past year many of the president’s powers have been transferred to Turabi.
Bashir came to power in 1989 in a military coup that was sponsored by Turabi and his now-defunct National Islamic Front.
Even though the general became president, Turabi remained the regime’s ideologue and strongman. In recent years Bashir has tried to sideline the speaker, but he has been unable to prevent him being granted sweeping powers to make key political decisions. Last month Turabi ignored a request by Bashir to postpone debating amendments that would drastically shrink the president’s powers.
The amendments reportedly would allow Parliament to remove the president with a two-thirds majority vote and create a directly elected prime minister who would be accountable to Parliament. The president currently acts as prime minister.
l Sudan has signed a peace deal with its rival, Uganda. Bashir and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni have pledged to restore diplomatic relations that were broken five years ago, when each country accused the other of aiding rebels operating along their 375km border. They will reopen their embassies by the end of February, and disarm and disband terrorist groups operating on their soil.