Sudan sovereign council formation drags on

Khartoum: Sudan’s transition towards civilian rule got off to a bumpy start as generals and protest leaders fell two days behind schedule on Tuesday in unveiling a joint sovereign council. The body will replace the transitional military council that took over from longtime ruler Omar al Bashir when he was forced from power by relentless protests in April. The general appeared in court sitting in a cage to face graft charges on Monday. The very first steps of the transition to civilian rule after 30 years of Bashir’s regime were proving difficult however with disagreements within the protest camp holding up the formation of Sudan’s new ruling body. The line-up was due to have been announced on Sunday, in line with a deal reached between the Transitional Military Council and the Forces for Freedom and Change opposition coalition. The TMC said on Monday however that the deadline had been pushed back 48 hours “at the request of the Forces for Freedom and Change” after they came back on some of the five names they initially put forward. The ruling sovereign council will be composed of 11 members including six civilians and five from the military. It will be headed by a general for the first 21 months and by a civilian for the remaining 18 months. The roadmap drawn up by the generals and protest leaders in recent weeks set on Tuesday as the date of the official appointment of a transitional prime minister. Abdalla Hamdok, a former UN economist based in Addis Ababa, has accepted the protest camp’s nomination but awaits the announcement of the sovereign council and has yet to arrive in the country. The transition’s key documents were signed on Saturday at a ceremony attended by a host of foreign dignitaries, signalling that Sudan could be on its way to shedding the pariah status the bloody war in Darfur had conferred on it in recent years. — AFP