Sudan bans Southern political parties

The Sudanese Board for Political Parties Affairs ruled on Thursday that 17 parties must cease political activities. The ruling comes following the partition of the country and the subsequent establishment of South Sudan. South Sudan gained independence on the 9th of July this year as the outcome of the 2005 peace agreement that ended Africa’s longest-running civil war. An overwhelming majority of Southern Sudanese residents voted in favour of independence. The Sudanese Board has now cancelled the licence of those parties based in South Sudan. In a statement, the Board said: “These parties are foreign and so have abrogated the conditions set in the 2005 Interim Constitution and in articles 14-12 of the 2007 Political Parties Law.” “All of those parties’ leaders and the majority of their membership lost their Sudanese nationality after South Sudan became an independent country.” The Board has stated that all other parties must cancel the membership of individuals who no longer carry Sudanese nationality.