Sudan: National Congress Party Condemns Authorities' Move to Dissolve It

Thousands of Sudanese rallied late last month in several cities, urging the new authorities to dissolve the former ruling party. AFP
Thousands of Sudanese rallied late last month in several cities, urging the new authorities to dissolve the former ruling party. AFP
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Sudan: National Congress Party Condemns Authorities' Move to Dissolve It

Thousands of Sudanese rallied late last month in several cities, urging the new authorities to dissolve the former ruling party. AFP
Thousands of Sudanese rallied late last month in several cities, urging the new authorities to dissolve the former ruling party. AFP

Ousted President Omar al-Bashir's party on Friday condemned what it described as new "illegal government" for ordering its closure and the dismantling of the regime.

The National Congress Party accused the authorities of trying to confiscate NCP properties to help tackle Sudan's economic crisis, which it said the new government had failed to tackle.

"To rely on the assets of the party, if there are any, is nothing more than a moral scandal, an act of intellectual bankruptcy and a total failure on the part of the illegal government," the Islamist NCP said on its Facebook page.

Sudan's new authorities ordered earlier on Thursday that the party of Bashir be dissolved and his regime be "dismantled", heeding the call of protesters whose campaign led to the leader's overthrow.

Bashir and his party had ruled the northeast African country since 1989 before a nationwide protest movement resulted in him being deposed earlier this year.

The country's new ruling sovereign council and the cabinet led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok made the decision to dissolve the party, approving a law titled "Dismantling of the regime of 30th June 1989," AFP reported.

"The National Congress Party is dissolved and its registration is cancelled from the list of political parties in Sudan," the decree said, adding that a committee would be formed to confiscate all its properties and assets.

"None of the symbols of the regime or party would be allowed to engage in any political activity for 10 years".

The dissolution of the party was "not a revenge" against the country's former rulers, Hamdok wrote on Twitter.

"But it aims to preserve the dignity of Sudanese people which was crushed by dishonest people."

"This law aims to recover the plundered wealth of the people."

Wajdi Salah, a spokesman of the umbrella protest movement Forces of Freedom and Change, said on his Facebook page that the old regime party would be dismantled completely.

The Sudanese Professionals Association, the protest group that had initially led the demonstrations against Bashir, praised the decision to dismantle the former regime.

"It is a major step towards achieving the goal of the revolution and on the path of building a democratic civilian state," the SPA said in a statement.

Thousands of Sudanese rallied late last month in several cities, urging the new authorities to dissolve the former ruling party.

According to AFP, Bashir is being held in a prison in Khartoum facing trial on charges of corruption.

Several other officials of his government and senior party members are also in jail.



Sudan PM Vows to Rebuild Khartoum on First Visit to War-torn Capital

Kamil Idris, a former UN official who was appointed in May as prime minister by Sudan's leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, addresses people and local fighters supporting the Sudanese army who came to cheer him on, during a visit in Omdurman on July 19, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
Kamil Idris, a former UN official who was appointed in May as prime minister by Sudan's leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, addresses people and local fighters supporting the Sudanese army who came to cheer him on, during a visit in Omdurman on July 19, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
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Sudan PM Vows to Rebuild Khartoum on First Visit to War-torn Capital

Kamil Idris, a former UN official who was appointed in May as prime minister by Sudan's leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, addresses people and local fighters supporting the Sudanese army who came to cheer him on, during a visit in Omdurman on July 19, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
Kamil Idris, a former UN official who was appointed in May as prime minister by Sudan's leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, addresses people and local fighters supporting the Sudanese army who came to cheer him on, during a visit in Omdurman on July 19, 2025. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)

Sudan's Prime Minister Kamil Idris on Saturday pledged to rebuild Khartoum, ravaged by more than two years of war, as he made his first visit to the capital since assuming office in May.

Touring Khartoum's destroyed infrastructure earlier, the new premier outlined mass repair projects in anticipation of the return of at least some of the over 3.5 million people who fled the violence, AFP reported.

"Khartoum will return as a proud national capital," Idris said, according to Sudan's state news agency.

Sudan's army chief and de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who appointed Idris, landed Saturday at Khartoum's airport, recaptured by the army in March after nearly two years of occupation by their rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The war between the Sudanese army and the RSF began in the heart of the capital in April 2023, quickly tearing the city apart.

Tens of thousands are estimated to have been killed in the once-bustling capital, and reconstruction is expected to be a herculean feat, with the government putting the cost at $700 billion nationwide, with Khartoum alone accounting for around half of that.

The army-aligned government, which moved to Port Sudan on the Red Sea early in the war and still operates from there, has begun to plan the return of ministries to Khartoum even as fighting rages on in other parts of the country.

Authorities have begun operations to properly bury the bodies still missing around the city, clear thousands of unexploded ordinance and resume bureaucratic services.

On a visit to Sudan's largest oil refinery, the Al-Jaili plant just north of Khartoum, Idris promised that "national institutions will come back even better than they were before".

The refinery -- now a blackened husk -- was recaptured in January, but the facility which once processed 100,000 barrels a day will take years and at least $1.3 billion to rebuild, officials told AFP.

Cabinet stumbles

The UN expects some two million people will return to Khartoum this year, but those coming back have found an unrecognizable city.

The scale of looting is unprecedented, aid workers say, with evidence of paramilitary fighters ripping copper wire out of power lines before they left.

Vast areas of the city remain without power, and the damage to water infrastructure has caused a devastating cholera outbreak. Health authorities recorded up to 1,500 cases a day last month, according to the UN.

"Water is the primary concern and obstacle delaying the return of citizens to their homes," Idris said on Saturday.

A career diplomat and former UN official, Idris is building a government that critics warn could put up a veneer of civilian rule, in addition to facing challenges within its own camp.

In 2020, during a short-lived transition to civilian rule, the government in Khartoum signed a peace agreement with Sudanese armed groups, allocating a share of cabinet posts to signatories.

All but three cabinet posts are now filled, and armed groups currently fighting alongside the army have retained their representation in Idris's government.

But reports that Idris had sought to appoint technocrats in their place have created tensions.

Some of the armed groups, known together as the Joint Forces, have been integral in defending North Darfur state capital El-Fasher, which has been besieged by the paramilitaries since May of last year.

If the RSF succeeds in taking El-Fasher, it will control all of the vast western region of Darfur, cementing the fragmentation of the country.

Despite the army securing the capital, as well as the country's north and east, war still rages in Sudan's west and south, where the RSF is accused of killing hundreds of civilians in recent days.

Sudan is suffering the world's largest hunger and displacement crises, with nearly 25 million people in dire food insecurity and over 10 million internally displaced across the country.

A further four million people have fled across borders.