The pressure for Sudan’s Omar Al-Bashir to step down as President has heightened with the country’s main opposition parties striking an alliance to force him out.
The opposition parties for years had been disjointed until Wednesday, when in a joint call besieged Al-Bashir to step down.
The joint call is the first since protests broke out across the country in which some 57 people are said to have been killed.
The protests which started last year continue unabated with demands for an end to Al-Bashir’s 30-year-old rule.
The death toll is likely to increase, a doctors Union called “Doctors Syndicate” warned due to the conditions of wounded protesters.
The opposition’s united call for Al-Bashir to step down comes days after Sudanese riot police fired tear gas into protesting crowds in the capital Khartoum and it’s twin city of Omdurman.
The united call
The opposition parties at their first joint news conference urged Al-Bashir to step down, paving way for a four-year transitional government followed by elections.
Mohamed Mokhtar al-Khatib, the general secretary of one of the opposition parties—the Communist party said “We have decided on the programme that would take place after the regime falls and (will) hold a constitutional dialogue conference at the end of the transitional period to decide how Sudan will be ruled.”
Reuter’s news agency reports that around 200 opposition members were present at the press conference chanted “Down, that’s it!”
The united demand by the opposition parties feeds into a similar one by 531 university staff members, asking for a transitional government to be formed, stressing that al-Bashir is unfit to rule.
Al-Bashir has vowed to continue as President, saying he would not be stampeded into leaving office by the ongoing protest.
He has said that “There’s only one road to power and that is through the ballot box. The Sudanese people will decide in 2020 who will govern them.”
Bashir already has plans to run for the presidency for the third time in elections to be held in 2020.
He has blamed what he calls external conspirators for ongoing anti-government protests.
Source: Africafeeds.com
