Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al Bashir urged the opposition Al Umma Party to take part in the new government being formed in the Arab African country.
Reports said that the call was issued to Umma’s number one and former premier Sadeq Al Mahdi during a meeting between the two on Thursday, attended also by Libyan leader Muammar Kadhafi, said Al Ray Al Aam Arabic daily.
The Umma Party joined other opposition forces in boycotting the Sudanese presidential and parliamentary elections in December, which Bashir won. Mahdi, whose government was overthrown by Bashir in 1989, did not consider the elections legitimate.
Umma was asking that the elections be postponed until a comprehensive political solution to the Sudanese civil war was reached, and that the money spent on the elections be used to treat medical patients and develop services, according to reports prior to the elections
Mahdi returned to Sudan in November after four years in exile.
The Sudanese daily quoted Bashir as telling reporters that he and Mahdi reached agreement on most of the agenda’s items, but he will wait for the party’s leadership to endorse participation in power at its meeting due on Saturday.
For his part, Mahdi told the official news agency (SUNA) that the meeting came “within the efforts aimed at a comprehensive political settlement,” in the country worn out by a 17-year civil war between south rebels and Khartoum government.
Spokesman of the Umma, Sarah Naqdallah, declined to elaborate on the development, according to the paper.
Mahdi met later with Ibrahim Ahmad Omar, secretary general of the ruling party, National Conference, whose leadership also met according to the report – Albawaba.com
