A prominent Sudanese political party on Saturday joined an opposition coalition seeking democratic reforms, ahead of the first multi-party elections in a quarter of a century. The Democratic Unionist Party lead by Mohammed Osman al-Mirghani has joined the "National Consensus" which groups several opposition parties and former southern rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, coalition spokesman Faruk Abu Issa said.
The DUP was the runner-up in Sudan's last multi-party elections in 1986, behind Sadeq al-Mahdi's Umma party and ahead of Islamists who eventually took power in a 1989 coup d'etat. In September last year, the SPLM formed an alliance with Umma under the banner "the Juba Conference."
"We have changed the name, it is no longer the 'Juba Conference', it is now called the 'National Consensus'. We make up the majority of the political class, except for the National Congress Party" of President Omar al-Beshir, said Yasser Arman, the SPLM's presidential candidate. Sudan is scheduled to hold elections from April 11 to 13, but rumours persist of a possible delay. National Consensus leaders met on Saturday in Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman but did not agree on a common call for the postponement of the vote, or a boycott.