SUDAN’S PREMIER TO FORM INDEPENDENT GOVERNMENT

Sudan’s reinstated prime minister said in an interview that aired Monday that he will have the authority to form his own independent government, according to the agreement he signed a day earlier with the country’s top generals who overthrew him in a coup last month.

In comments made during an interview with the AlJazeera English satellite channel, Hamdok said he foresaw the next government as focusing on rewriting the country’s constitution and holding elections on time.

On Sunday, Sudan’s deposed prime minister signed a deal that will see him reinstated, almost a month after a military coup put him under house arrest. The agreement envisions an independent, technocratic Cabinet to be led by Hamdok until elections can be held. Even then, it would still remain under military oversight. But Hamdok claimed that he will have the power to make the government appointments.

“This was a key part of the political agreement we signed,” Hamdok said in the interview. “That the prime minister should have the power and the authority to form an independent technocratic government.”

In response to Sunday’s deal, thousands of Sudanese took to the streets Sunday to denounce what many called a betrayal of the democratic cause by their former prime minister, who has been the civilian face of the transitional government since it took power after a 2019 popular uprising deposed longtime autocrat Omar alBashir. The country’s leading political opposition parties have said they refuse the deal with the generals.