General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, who carried out a coup in Sudan last month, on Thursday appointed a new sovereignty council, from which representatives of the bloc demanding a transfer of power to civilians were excluded.
After the fall in 2019 of dictator Omar al-Bashir, a sovereignty council made up of civilians and soldiers was set up to oversee the transition to democracy under the chairmanship of General Burhane.
On October 25, the latter dissolved all institutions, declared a state of emergency and arrested most of the civilian leaders, which brought Sudan to an avalanche of condemnations and cuts in international aid.
For days, the military had been announcing the “imminent” formation of authorities who would lead the country towards free elections, assuring that they had only had to dismiss civilian leaders who did not agree with them on the path to be taken towards freedom. democracy.
The government, of which several ministers are still detained and whose prime minister, Abdallah Hamdok, remains under house arrest, has not been replaced so far.
With his Thursday night decree, General Burhane retains the presidency of the sovereignty council, state television reported.
“Very worrying”
General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, at the head of the very powerful Rapid Support Forces, paramilitary troops accused of having committed abuses in the Darfur region and during the repression of the anti-Bashir revolt, remains his number two.
The UN on Thursday considered the developments in Sudan “very worrying”, according to its spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric. “We want to see the resumption of the transition as soon as possible” as well as “the release of Prime Minister Hamdok, like that of other arrested politicians and leaders,” Dujarric said.
For its part, the UN Security Council held a meeting on Sudan, concluded without a joint declaration. The fault was blamed by diplomats on Russia, which continues to support General Burhane, according to one.
In Sudan, the deposed Minister of Information, Hamza Baloul, on Facebook described Thursday night’s appointments as a “headlong rush”.
The new body has 14 members. However, only 13 names were announced by the official Sudan TV channel. The fourteenth member is to represent the East, where protesters have blocked Port Sudan, the country’s commercial heartland, for a month and a half, and has obviously not yet been accepted by all.
Call to demonstrate
Of the 13 names announced, only four are new: non-partisan personalities who replace the four representatives of the Forces for Freedom and Change, the union of civil forces born out of the anti-Bashir revolt, some of whom were arrested on the day. of the coup.
The nine members who remain on the Sovereign Council are representatives of the army or armed rebel groups who signed peace with Khartoum at the end of 2020 after years of conflict across the country.