News Analysis: Several crises awaits Sudan president in new term of office

As Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir is scheduled to take oath for a new five-year term of office, he has to address many political, security and economic challenges his country is going through, analysts said.

"The security situation is one of the major challenges for the new presidential term, to begin on Tuesday," Mohamed Hassan Saeed, a Sudanese political analyst, told Xinhua Monday.

Without security, no progress could be made in the political, economic and social fields, he pointed out.

"The Darfur crisis has been prolonged and the war in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states has exhausted the country's treasury and hindered the establishment of giant development projects in these areas, which are rich of their agricultural and mining resources," he noted.

Saeed further reiterated the importance of adopting the principle of dialogue as a base for resolving the issues at the three areas.

"The government needs to give significant concessions in order to achieve peace. It will need to exert internal and external efforts to persuade the rebels to join the dialogue and negotiation," he added.

Darfur armed movements and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM)/northern sector have refused to join peace talks.

Bashir, who is the chairman of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), achieved a landslide victory in the presidential polls in April, obtaining 94.5 percent of the votes, while his party won the largest number of votes in the legislative elections to enjoy the majority of the seats in the National Assembly (parliament).

On the eve of his inauguration, Bashir vowed in a meeting with his party members in Khartoum to dedicate his new term to achieve security, impose the sovereignty of the state and find solutions to the deteriorating economic situation.

"We want Sudan to set out during the coming presidential period. We have clearly set our priorities," Bashir was quoted by local media as saying.

"The first priority is to achieve security and impose the sovereignty of the state in all parts of Sudan because security and development are two faces of the same coin," he noted.

Earlier, Bashir declared that 2015 would mark the end of the war in Sudan, particularly in the troubled Darfur region, and South Kordofan and Blue Nile states which have been witnessing armed clashes since 2011.

At the political level, the re-launch of the national dialogue, which the Sudanese president called for, would be at the top of the priorities of the upcoming government.

In January 2014, Bashir declared an initiative calling on the opposition parties and the armed movements to enter into a national dialogue to tackle the country's crises.

Bashir's invitation found a relative acceptance from political forces, but his ruling party insisted that the elections be held as scheduled, which crippled the dialogue process after some active opposition parties pulled out in protest against the move.

To this end, Al-Saddiq Abdul-Jaleel, another Sudanese political analyst, told Xinhua that "the success of the national dialogue depends on the ability of the NCP and its chairman Bashir to dispelling the fears of the political forces."

"There are political forces rejecting the national dialogue and others skeptical about its outcome, particularly after the NCP insisted to conduct the elections. The success of the initiative depends on the efforts which the NCP would exert to dispel those concerns and doubts," he said.

In the meantime, the Sudanese political forces are waiting for what Bashir would say in his address on Tuesday after taking the oath.

The opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) voiced hope that Bashir's address would include a decision to release the political detainees and ensure participation of the Darfur armed movements in the national dialogue.

"The national dialogue represents a strategic line for our party and there are no other options," Kamal Hassan Omer, PCP political secretary, was quoted by local media as saying.

"Solving the issues and problems should be internally and not through external agreements," he noted, advising the parties to back down from their stance seeking external solutions.

The economic condition constitutes another challenge ahead of Bashir's new term under scarcity of resources and continuing decline for the national currency (the pound) against foreign currencies.

The secession of South Sudan in 2011 has badly affected the Sudanese economy as the the country lost around 70 percent of its oil revenues, creating a big gap in the foreign exchange market and the exchange rate.

The separation has also negatively affected the state budget which dropped to around 50 percent, causing a huge budget deficit.

The Sudanese government has adopted a package of economic measures to revive the economy including an increase in the oil prices, but those measures have not prevented the Sudanese pound from declining as it dropped to 9.5 against the U.S. dollar in the black market compared to 6.6 pounds in the official market. Endit