Khartoum — The National Accord Forces on Tuesday signed a political declaration aiming to achieve civilian rule and the formation of a sovereign ruling body for the next 30 months.
The Forces for Freedom and Change-National Accord (FFC-NA) breakaway faction, aka National Accord Forces, stipulates the formation of a cabinet of 26 ministers, the formation of a legislative council of 400 members, and describes the tasks of the new transitional government, as well as the powers of the prime minister.
The role of the military in the government should be limited to security and defence councils, which are to be chaired by a civilian head of state or the prime minister.
The declaration also calls for an investigation into the June 3 massacre in 2019, when more than 100 peaceful protesters were killed in an attack by government forces on the sit-in in front of the Khartoum army command.
The National Accord Forces is dominated by rebel groups that signed the Juba Peace Agreement, and support the coup d'état of October 25 last year. The group which announced its new structure in April, is presided by Mohamed Ardol, the former spokesmen for the Sudan People Liberation Movement-North, who became director of the Sudanese Company for Mineral Resources during the rule of Omar Al Bashir. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is an ally.
In July, the group announced the formation of a committee headed by rebel leader Minni Minawi, currently Governor of Darfur, "to communicate with the rest of the components in the political arena", and said it also decided to form a committee to develop "a political vision regarding the formation of the structures of the transitional period".
Members of the suspended Empowerment Removal Committee accused Minawi this week of corruption.
Merge of documents
The mainstream faction of the FFC outlaid their political views in a draft of a new constitutional charter at the beginning of August. In it, the FFC-Central Council confirmed its categorical rejection of any agreement with the military and reasserted its desire to work with the resistance committees in the country but it was not clear if the contents of the two political charters issued by the resistance committees of Wad Madani in El Gezira and of Khartoum earlier this year would be taken into consideration as well.
The FFC-CC alliance of progressive parties and groups strongly opposes the ideas of the new Sudan People's Call initiative, which is reportedly supported by Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, Chairman of the Sovereignty Council and Commander of the Sudanese army. In a conference in mid-August, the initiative proposed that the High Council of the Armed Forces, as proposed by Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan on July 4, be given broad authority, including sovereign powers. The FFC-CC described the ideas of the new group as anti-democratic and "an attempt to turn back the clock" and allow the military to control Sudan's politics.
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Sudan Tribune reported on August 8 that a leading member of the National Accord Forces also rejected the Sudan People's Call launched by Sufi leader El Tayeb El Jad, saying that it reflects the ousted regime of Omar Al Bashir and its Islamist supporters.
On July 4, El Burhan announced that the military would withdraw from the government as soon as the political forces would agree on the formation of a government of technocrats, to complete the tasks of the transitional period. The move was widely condemned by the FFC-CC and the resistance committees as a ploy, and sparked nationwide protests.
The Trilateral Mechanism, originally formed by the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), the AU, and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), to facilitate a national dialogue between the military and civil opposition groups, is now working to gather the opinions, constitutional draft texts, and political charters from the various opposition groups in the country, and combine them into a final draft "to be discussed and agreed upon by all Sudanese stakeholders" in order to form a new transitional government.
