Sudan’s leader seeks new term

What you need to know:

  • The 70-year-old career soldier took power in an Islamist-backed coup, and there had been doubts about whether he would run again in the controversial election, slated for April.
  • The president garnered 266 out of the 396 votes cast, Mr Ghandour said, with the remainder of the 522 advisory council members choosing not to take part.

KHARTOUM
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir — in power since a 1989 coup — will stand for re-election in 2015 after being retained Tuesday as leader of the ruling National Congress Party, a top aide said.

President Bashir, the only sitting head of state wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), was re-elected as both leader and presidential candidate of the NCP at a party convention, said his chief assistant, Ibrahim Ghandour.

The 70-year-old career soldier took power in an Islamist-backed coup, and there had been doubts about whether he would run again in the controversial election, slated for April.

In a March interview, Ghandour said Bashir “declared many times that he’s not willing to” stand again but that the final decision was with the party.

Two knee operations over the summer also raised worries over his health.

But Mr Bashir’s name was put on the party’s shortlist of five candidates and his tally in today’s vote was enough to rule out further voting, Mr Ghandour said.

The president garnered 266 out of the 396 votes cast, Mr Ghandour said, with the remainder of the 522 advisory council members choosing not to take part.

The other four nominees were all senior NCP officials seen as close to Bashir: Ghandour himself, senior member Nafie Ali Nafie, ex-vice president Ali Osman Taha and First Vice President Bakri Hassan Saleh.

One advisory council member who chose not to vote said he abstained because he felt the five candidates were not serious about reforming the impoverished, war-ravaged country.

“Those five have been ruling for 25 years, and this means that they are not serious about reforms and they do not represent the diversity of Sudan,” he said, speaking anonymously on the sidelines of the convention. But one analyst said the NCP delegates may have picked Bashir as a consensus candidate, as there have been signs of divisions within the party.