By Khalid Abdelaziz
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's parliament amended the constitution on Monday to remove all references to the country's south and ending southern members' participation, angering the oil-producing region not due to split until July.
Khartoum's ruling National Congress Party signed a 2005 peace deal with the southern ex-rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement to form a joint government and parliament, share oil wealth and promising a 2011 southern referendum on secession. The wealth and power sharing is due to end on July 9.
But the NCP-dominated national parliament on Monday amended the constitution without consulting the SPLM, souring north-south relations which had improved since the NCP recognition of the result of January's referendum, showing 99 percent of southerners voted for independence.
Sudan's justice minister presented the new constitution to parliament and the speaker told reporters that the SPLM members would not participate in the April session of parliament.
"The southern seats in parliament will no longer exist from April and the parliament will continue with 351 seats instead of 450 until the end of its mandate," said speaker Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir, also a member of the NCP.
Atem Garang, deputy speaker from the SPLM, said that if the power sharing ended early, the wealth sharing could too.
"This procedure could make us think we might no longer give you the 50 percent of the oil," he told parliament, objecting to the move.
Under the 2005 deal, revenues from oil in the south are shared roughly 50:50.
Sudan produces some 500,000 bpd of crude with more than 75 percent of it from fields in the south.
The head of the SPLM's northern sector, Yasir Arman, told Reuters the move violated the constitution and paved the way for an undemocratic one-party state in the north post secession.
"What happened is a coup from the NCP against the constitution," Arman said. "The constitution should govern the period until July 9 and more surprisingly the NCP did not consult the SPLM."
Arman will remain in the north post secession as a separate political party along with hundreds of thousands of other northern SPLM members. He added the NCP had not clarified if this was to be the final constitution of the new northern state.
"This indicates for the future of the north that there is preparation for a one-party system and more dictatorship," he said.
On Monday a senior NCP official said President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who took power in a bloodless 1989 coup, would not stand in the next presidential election due in 2015. Critics belittled the move saying Khartoum wanted to stem the regional contagion of popular protest movements.
Sudan's north-south civil war raged on and off since 1955 and claimed 2 million lives. It was fuelled by differences over oil, ethnicity, religion and ideology.
(Additional reporting and writing by Opheera McDoom)
