Powerful Sudanese minister loses cabinet job

September 14, 2008 (KHARTOUM) – A powerful south Sudanese politician lost his cabinet position in a reshuffle on Sunday, state media reported.

Pagan Amum, who is Secretary General of south Sudan's dominant Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), was "relieved of his post" as Minister of the Council of Ministers in Sudan's national coalition government, the state Suna news agency said.

SPLM officials said the move was as the result of a new party constitution that meant members of its governing secretariat could not stand for parliament.

"He was not fired," said Ann Ito, the head of SPLM's secretariat in the south. "It is just the new SPLM constitution." A source in Sudan's presidential office confirmed that the move had just been "procedural".

But the announcement and the abrupt way it was made will be welcomed by many northern politicians who were enraged when Amum was quoted describing Sudan as a "failed and corrupt state" during a public forum in Khartoum earlier this year.

He was briefly suspended and faced calls for his resignation.

The SPLM joined a coalition government with the north's dominant National Congress Party under the terms of a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war.

Relations between the two former foes have remained strained.

Amum, who is out of the country on a trip to the United States, was unavailable for comment.

A second presidential decree announced a reshuffle naming new ministers for investment and higher education as well as the council of ministers post.