Sudan: Ruling party calls for Bashir to stand for 3rd term

The Advisory Council of Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) has approved an amendment to its statutes so as to allow the nomination of its leader, President Omar Al-Bashir, for another presidential term in the 2020 elections.

The council approved the amendment of Article 36 late yesterday. The law restricted the mandate period for the election or selection of holders of organisational functions to two periods.

However members called on authorities to begin making the necessary changes to allow Al-Bashir to stand in the next presidential polls.The amendments included increasing the percentage of women in the NCP from 25 per cent to 30 per cent.

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Armed opposition groups came out in support of the decision today saying: “Al-Bashir is our first candidate and those who do not want him to be nominated should go to the polls.”    Article 57 of the Constitution provides that “the term of office of the President of the Republic shall be five years starting from the day he assumes office and may be re-elected for a second term only.”

Al-Bashir was elected president in 2010 and re-elected in 2015 for a presidential term which will end in 2020. He came to power in 1989 when, as a brigadier in the Sudanese Army, he led a group of officers in a military coup that ousted the democratically elected government of prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi after it began negotiations with rebels in the south.