Sudan leader ousted by coup returns with deal

NAIROBI, Kenya — After four weeks under house arrest, Sudan’s ousted prime minister was reinstated Sunday after he signed a deal with the military intended to end a bloody standoff that led to dozens of protester deaths and threatened to derail Sudan’s fragile transition to democracy.

At a televised ceremony in the presidential palace, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok appeared alongside Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army chief who ousted him from power Oct. 25, and signed a 14-point agreement that both men hailed as an important step forward.

“We must put an end to the bloodshed,” said Hamdok, referring to the protesters killed by the security forces in tumultuous anti-coup protests that swept the capital, Khartoum, and other Sudanese cities in recent weeks.

But the deal met with a wave of anger on the streets, where vocal critics slammed it as an unacceptable concession to a military that has controlled Sudan for 52 years of its 60-year history and that is likely to severely hamper efforts to move the country toward democracy.

Jeering protesters massed outside the palace where Hamdok and al-Burhan signed the deal and clashed in other parts of the city. Police officers fired tear gas and live bullets.

The Umma party, Sudan’s biggest, rejected the deal before it had even been signed, as did the Forces of Freedom and Change, a civilian coalition that shared power with the military until the coup.

“Hamdok preferred to become the secretary of a dictator over a symbol of an emancipatory movement,” said Magdi el-Gizouli of the Rift Valley Institute, a research body in East Africa. “Whoever marketed this as realpolitik underestimated the depth of the desire for change, and a new future, among the new generation in Sudan.”

Al-Burhan paid tribute to Hamdok during a ceremony Sunday and promised Sudanese citizens he would continue with the political transition “until your dreams of democracy, peace and justice are realized.”

Hamdok will be allowed to form his own government, said a Western official familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss delicate issues. But important points of contention between the two sides have not been finalized, including crucial arrangements for sharing power, the official said.