Sudan’s ousted prime minister Abdalla Hamdok has been reinstated in a power-sharing deal with military coup leader Abdel Fattah al Burhan, APA can report on Monday.
PM Hamdok has been under house arrest since al-Burhan staged a coup in October, sparking widespread street protests across Sudan.
The prime minister appeared on state television announcing a “breakthrough power-sharing” deal following talks Gen al-Burhan.
He said his decision to work with the military rulers was informed by the urge to stop the country from degenerating further into “political chaos which would spill the blood of the Sudanese people”.
According to the terms of the new agreement, PM Hamdok will form a cabinet of technocrats and work toward the holding of elections by 2023 without the interference of the military leadership.
It is not clear how much power Hamdok will wield to this end.
Mr Hamdok said political prisoners will be freed.
However, the new deal has not satisfied protesters and they have been taking to the streets to point out that Sudan’s military rulers cannot be trusted to “shepherd the country’s transition to fully-fledged civilian rule in the shortest possible time.
The coalition of political parties which appointed Mr Hamdok as prime minister following the 2019 overthrow of long term ruler Omar al-Bashir has rejected the new agreement.
In the lead up to the Hamdok- Burhan pact, scores of protesters have been killed as they insisted on their demand for Sudan’s military rulers to withdraw from politics and allow the transition to civilian rule to continue.
Sudan’s new military rulers have repeatedly said their intervention will not disrupt the country’s transition programme.
WN/as/APA