Al Jazeera Net - Khartoum

Three fundamental issues stand in the way of completing the final legal drafting of the agreement between the Transitional Military Council and the forces of the Declaration of Freedom and Change in Sudan.

A joint legal committee of the two parties began drafting the agreement on the transfer of power last Saturday and was expected to complete its work within 48 hours.

According to a well-informed source speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, the most important disagreements that hinder the completion of the legal drafting concerned member 11 of the Council of Sovereignty, where the military insisted on being a civilian with a military background.

According to the agreement, the Council of Sovereignty consists of 11 members, five of whom will be called the Military Council, 5 of which will be freedom and change forces, and the two will agree on the 11 members.

6057891714001 cc4f50b2-e686-4fc3-8e00-239672efca39 1b831ee3-d078-4690-b0c6-232f6ba90555
video

Conditions of "sovereign"
At the level of the members of the Prime Minister, another disagreement between the parties to the agreement is that the military wants the agreement to provide that the candidates have "independent national competencies." In contrast, the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces wants the text to be "national competencies."

The source says that the forces of freedom and change want to withdraw the word "independent" from the text on the terms of nominations for portfolios so that the characters can be presented under previous political backgrounds.

Under the power-sharing agreement, the government consists of a prime minister and 18 ministerial portfolios whose candidates are nominated by the forces of freedom and change before they enjoy the support of the sovereign council.

Military tension
On the 300-seat Legislative Council, the same source said that the military hoped the document would provide that the council would only be censored by stripping it of the right to enact laws, while the freedom and change forces wanted a full-fledged parliament, including the right to legislate.

The source pointed out that the military has a high tension with regard to the Legislative Council, especially with regard to the granted to the forces of freedom and change "67%" compared to 33% for the rest of the other forces.

Previous understandings between the parties to the negotiations gave two-thirds of the seats of the transitional parliament to the forces of freedom and change, but the military later objected to this percentage, as the draft agreement provided by the African-Ethiopian mediation was silenced before the resumption of negotiations.

On the structure of the regular forces, the source says that the parties to the agreement agree that any restructuring by an elected government, but the forces of freedom and change calls for the structure of the security and intelligence during the transitional period.

He adds that the forces of freedom and change also hold that the chamber of the two chambers of sovereignty and ministers take over the task of enacting legislation until the formation of the Legislative Council after three months to avoid any vacuum, while the military do not tend to this option.

Other terms
In a related context, identical sources say that there are differences over terms in the document emerged when translated from Arabic to English.

6056985693001 c894e567-3f17-4998-ac18-abbf347e32d4 0d3462ca-e280-42d8-8e17-7e5787fee5f6
video

The most important of these terms is the word "adoption" in Chapter IV of the Transitional Council of Powers and its powers. The forces of freedom and change wish to replace the word with "approval", in that the Council authorizes the Council of Sovereignty to reject or amend, contrary to ratification.

According to the document, the Sovereign Council exercises powers, including the adoption of the appointment of the President and members of the Council of Ministers, the appointment of provincial or state governors, the appointment of members of the Legislative Council, the adoption of the High Judicial Council, the appointment of the Chief Justice, Attorney general.

According to the source, the two parties will begin - in the case of the approval of the agreement - in the arrangement of the ceremony to celebrate the signing of the agreement, which is expected to come simple without a hustle "in respect of the martyrs of the revolution."