News Analysis: Sudan's new gov't shows no essential change: political analysts

After almost three months of waiting, Sudan announced the new government of national consensus on Thursday, but Sudanese political analysts say there is no essential change to the government system.

At a press conference in Khartoum on Thursday, Sudan's First Vice President and Prime Minister Bakri Hassan Saleh announced the country's new government which includes two vice presidents, four presidential assistants, 31 federal ministers and 45 state ministers.

"After all this delay, we have been expecting essential change in the formation of the new government, but the change was very limited," Abdul-Rahman Ibrahim, a Sudanese political analyst, told Xinhua on Friday.

"There has been no change at the presidential level except for decreasing the number of presidential assistants from five to four. Besides, most of the sovereign ministries remain in the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), which earlier said it would give up 50 percent of its share in the government," he noted.

According to Ibrahim, the major faces in the government have not changed.

"Out of a total of 31 federal ministers, 17 remain in their posts, and though the new government has new faces, they come from marginal ministries excluding the finance minister," he said.

The two vice presidents have kept their posts, where Bakri Hassan Saleh remains as First Vice President and Hasabo Mohamed Bdul-Rahman as Vice President.

Four old presidential assistants, Mohamed al-Hassan al-Merghani, Ibrahim Mahmoud, Musa Mohamed Ahmed and Abdul-Rahman Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdiin, have kept their posts in the new government, while Jalal Yousif Al-Digair, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, lost his post as presidential assistant.

The ruling NCP continues to dominate the majority of sovereign ministries of defense, interior, foreign affairs, presidency, oil, finance, higher education and electricity and dams.

"Many expected the new government to be totally different because it is the outcome of participation of more than 90 political parties and around 34 armed movements in the national dialogue conference, but what it has been announced does not consist with that vision," Abdul-Ghafar Ali Sheikh Nour-Eddin, a Sudanese political analyst, told Xinhua.

"There was no big change in the share of the ruling party which have kept the majority of sovereign ministries with the involvement of some parties and armed groups," he added.

A total of 17 ministers in the old government have kept their posts, and 65 parliamentary members were appointed from the parties participating in the national dialogue.

The new government was scheduled to be announced in February but was delayed because of differences within the parties. Endit