"I can confirm, 100 percent, that Bashir is not going to run for president in the next election. He will actually give a chance to different personalities to compete for the position," Rabie Abdul Ati told AFP.

"But he is not under pressure... This is not in the context of the change that is happening in the Arab world. It is happening because of the political strategy of the NCP to broaden participation," he added, referring to a meeting of the ruling party's youth wing last week.

Abdul Ati's comments come amid fresh political turmoil in the Arab world, which has already unseated the presidents of Tunisia and neighbouring Egypt, and is now sweeping through Libya, which also shares a border with Sudan.

Bashir, who came to power in an Islamist-backed military coup in 1989, won a new five-year term of office in elections last April, despite being indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. He has since been charged with genocide.

A senior Sudanese opposition leader said the NCP comments about Bashir standing down at the next presidential election were directly related to the wave of popular unrest in the region.

"I think this is very much to do with the tsunami of people power against dictatorship in the area," Mubarak al-Fadl, a leader of the opposition Umma party, told AFP.

"Bashir feels the ground is very fragile under his feet and it is very clear that the Islamists are frustrated... They know the regime is shaky and the economic situation is very bad."

Widespread economic and political discontent have provoked sporadic protests in north Sudan since January, but the powerful security forces have maintained tight control in the capital.

The elections last April were the first multi-party polls since the 1986 election of the government that Bashir overthrew, but were marred by accusations of fraud and an opposition boycott.

The NCP won 323 of the 450 seats and is set to further tighten its grip on power when 99 southern MPs are evicted from parliament in April, following last month's referendum on southern independence.

Southerners voted almost unanimously to split with the north to become Africa's newest nation in July.

Localised but vocal protests calling for regime change, civil liberties and an end to soaring price rises erupted in Khartoum and other northern cities at the end of last month, on the same day that preliminary results for the referendum were announced.

The protests were organised by students via the Internet and inspired by the protests in Tunisia and Egypt.

Police used tear gas and batons to disperse the protesters and made more than 100 arrests.

Senior Sudanese officials have said they do not fear Egypt- and Tunisia-style uprisings, and described the demonstrations in Sudan as illegal and isolated.

In addition to Sudan's economic woes, compounded by heavy debt and exhausted foreign currency reserves, the government faces criticism for the outcome of the southern referendum, which is set to split Africa's largest country in two, and for its handling of the armed rebellion in Darfur.

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