Khartoum - Director of Alayam Centre for Cultural Studies and Development Mahjoub Mohamed Salih has affirmed existence of strong political will for formulating a permanent

constitution for the Sudan, saying that the constitution should be written despite the circumstances and challenges facing the state.
Salih, in an interview to Sudan Vision to be published later on, said “We at Alayam Centre are embarked on writing the constitution and have issued three books and seven booklets that deal with some issues in a simple way,” adding that the process of writing a constitution has no longer a process that is undertaken by a committee of a limited number of members, but rather it should be a process of comprehensive dialogue involving all the people of the country and supervised by a neutral group.
There are many issues that should be settled through inclusive participation to reach a democratic constitution with the participation of all without exclusion to any person or issue, Salih noted.
He said there is a need for adoption of a new approach for writing the constitution which is different from that adopted in formulating the previous constitutions of the Sudan, affirming that the current Constitution of the Sudan, 2005 is considered as one of the best constitutions which were written in Sudan, but some amendments and distortions occurred in it.
Salih stressed the importance of provision of guarantees for all the movements and parties, saying that it is not enough for the government to call on the people to join the constitution, but it has to provide the guarantees and that it would not intervene to prevent any political faction from expressing its views or impeding dialogue in all parts of Sudan on the constitutional issues.
He said “we should admit that we have failed in managing the Sudanese diversity, so we need a system of government that ends the phenomenon of marginalization,” calling for prevalence of freedoms and listening to the peripheries and discussing their issues besides designing the federal system.
Saying the constitution governs the political, economic and social life, Salih called for strengthening the role of the media in the coming phase, saying that “a big mission is awaiting us,’’ that requires freedom, adding that “ we would not reach a solution agreed upon by all without dialogue.”
He stressed the importance of neutrality of the government media towards the constitution, disclosing a proposal by Alayam group on raising public awareness on the constitution through the various local languages, saying that this is the time of raising awareness of the people on the constitution.
He pointed out that all political, economic and social issues of Sudan require contributions and intellectual innovations, hoping that the coming constitutional experience would be a comprehensive one.