Sudan President Omar Bashir might step down after end of term

In his first press statements since losing his Vice Presidential post this week, al-Haj Adam Youssef said that the NCP is capable of picking its candidate for the upcoming elections.
"[President] Bashir could have [voluntarily] abandoned his position [right now] but the reality necessitated that he stays until the end of the [Presidential] term," Youssef said.

Earlier this year, the Sudanese veteran leader who staged a military coup in 1989, announced that he is serious about making this term his last after more than a quarter century in power.

Bashir stressed that the country is in need of new blood and noted that he spent more than enough time at this post.

But afterwards several Sudanese official sought to downplay Bashir's comments and suggested that the NCP could force Bashir to run again.

Last June, the Sudanese president himself appeared to backtrack his statements by saying that the media made conclusions on the issue of his candidacy without being fully informed adding that his re-election will be determined by the NCP's General Convention and the Shura Council.

The former presidential adviser Ghazi Salah al-Deen al-Attabani saw himself losing his position this year as head of the NCP caucus in parliament after publicly declaring that Bashir is constitutionally barred from running again for presidency.

Party officials however insisted that there is no link between al-Attabani's ouster and his remarks on Bashir's eligibility to run again.

Al-Attabani was expelled from the NCP last October in wake of a memo he drafted along with more than two dozen party figures the month before calling for reversing decision to lift fuel subsidies and end the violent measures taken against the demonstrators who took the streets to protest.