New bottle for old wine

By Mohamed Khaled

Upon receiving the results, Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir said that "the vast popular participation in the referendum demonstrated a high degree of awareness and responsiveness by the people to the document, which reflects the aspirations, hopes and culture of the Sudanese people."

The issue of pluralism and the freedom to form political parties dominated the debates that took place when the constitution was being drafted, and ended in a number of vague terms in the text which was put to the vote. The text provides for limited freedom to form "associations" to be enacted in due course under the watchful eye of the law.

"Whatever is mentioned about freedom in the constitution comes with the proviso, 'within the limits of the law,'" El-Tigani El-Tayeb, a member of the leadership council of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the umbrella organisation of the Sudanese opposition, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "This raises questions about the power of the constitution over laws and the relationship between both. The law becomes both the origin and the reference. There will also be no way in the future to claim that any of the laws contradict the constitution since the constitution itself has given unlimited power to the laws that will be enacted," El-Tayeb said.

According to El-Tayeb, the constitution as a whole expresses the point of view of a single party, the National Islamic Front (NIF) led by Hassan Al-Turabi, which is backing the current military regime. "Constitutions are usually aimed at organising the relationship between people and the state on the basis of the people's will. The existing situation in Sudan is the domination of a single party throughout. Therefore, the approved constitution is, in fact, the ruling NIF's programme and that is why we in the NDA rejected it ," he added.

Despite the government's claims, the constitution is ambiguous on the issues of political and religious freedoms and has elicited mixed reactions in both government and opposition circles. On the government's side, the constitution having left several grey areas regarding the formation of political parties, a number of different perspectives have emerged. Sudanese Vice-President Ali Othman Taha ruled out the possibility of the participation of opposition parties which have launched an armed struggle to overthrow the regime. In line with Taha's argument, other senior government officials suggested that only new parties could be formed, while banning the parties that existed before Al-Bashir's 1989 military coup.

Opposition parties were also reportedly discussing among themselves the possibility of taking advantage of the limited freedom they have to organise under the constitution, in order to resume their public, (as opposed to their current illegal) activities in Sudan. Some opposition leaders inside Sudan, such as Sid Ahmed Al-Hussein, of the Democratic Union Party (DUP), and Fadlalla Nasir of the Umma Party (UM), announced that their parties would immediately begin to work openly once the president approved the new constitution. Though they have yet to take a final stand, it seems that all the opposition parties are stuck over the question as to whether their activity within the context of the constitution would mean recognising a regime they want to bring down.

Another controversial issue regarding the constitution is the statement that refers to Islamic Shari'a and traditional practices as being the main source of all legislation. Opposition parties believe this clause reinforces an Islamist state which, they claim, is not the right formula to deal with a complex situation, given the wide ethnic, cultural and religious diversity of Sudan.

"Combining only traditional practices, which is a weak tool in light of variations from one region to another, with Islamic law, a strong tool, means the domination of the latter and consequent reinforcement of an Islamic state against the will of non-Muslim Sudanese," said El-Tayeb.