KHARTOUM

- Against the chants of protesters, tear gas bombs and a wave of widespread popular rejection, a signing ceremony took place at the presidential palace in Khartoum on Sunday, a ceremony for the signing of a political agreement between the Sudanese army chief, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the reinstated prime minister, Abdullah Hamdok, in an effort to defuse a stifling political crisis. It has nearly ravaged the country since its emergence on October 25.

Hundreds of demonstrators who called for the first time to go to the presidential palace - within a salary schedule to demonstrate against the measures of the military component - did not care what was going on in one of its halls of understandings that were completed between Al-Burhan, Hamdok and Hemedti, but the chants turned into angry voices rejecting the new agreement as it gives legitimacy to the described procedures It was a "coup carried out by Al-Burhan against the civilian partners."

The demonstrators, who were dispersed with gas bombs from the vicinity of the presidential palace, demanded to break up the partnership with the military component, and to refer its leaders to investigation due to the killing of about 40 people since last October 25 at the hands of security forces that the protesters say targeted peaceful demonstrators with live bullets.

With the spread of news about the signing of the Al-Burhan and Hamdok agreement, the slogans of the protests that took place in most of the three cities of the capital turned into demands to hand over power to a full civilian government, and the return of the military to the barracks, although one of the terms of the agreement included a text handing over power to civilians on the scheduled date by June 2022.

Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok (right) and Army Commander Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan raise a copy of the political agreement (Al-Jazeera)

popular indignation

The political agreement between Al-Burhan and Hamdok maintained the "transitional partnership between civilians and the military, as it is the guarantor and the way for Sudan's security and stability," which angers most of the street, which raised the slogan "No negotiation, no legitimacy, no partnership" with the military, given their full responsibility for the killing of dozens of civilians. Peaceful youth since the dispersal of the sit-in of the General Command in June 2019, passing through those who fell after the Burhan procedures that ravaged the partnership with the Forces of Freedom and Change, the original partner in the constitutional document governing the transitional period.

It seemed that the parties’ certainty of the sensitivity of the violent events that accompanied the peaceful protests and resulted in deaths and injuries prompted them to make amendments to the text of the nascent political agreement, after its first draft was devoid of talk about the investigation of recent events, but the version that was read and signed between Al-Burhan and Hamdok included a text calling for “ Investigate the events that took place during the demonstrations, including injuries and deaths of civilians and military personnel, and bring the perpetrators to trial.

The agreement also referred to the release of detainees, the formation of a civilian government run by independent competencies, and the acceleration of the completion of all transitional government institutions, by forming the Legislative Council and judicial bodies from a constitutional court and appointing the Chief Justice and the Attorney General, provided that the formation of commissions and other transitional government institutions will follow in succession and carry out their tasks immediately. according to specific timetables.

It seemed that Hamdok would face a complicated situation after accepting the agreement with Al-Burhan away from the political forces or what was known as the incubator represented by the forces of freedom and change, as well as a state of widespread popular discontent with which his agreement with the army chief was met.


refusal of agreement

Observers believe that Hamdok has become a partner to Al-Burhan, who planned to exclude the Federal Gathering Parties, the Sudanese Congress and the Baath Party from the political scene, after he kept accusing them of hijacking decisions and controlling the reins of power away from the components of the Forces for Freedom and Change, which amount to about 79 parties, which means that the new government will face opposition. A fierce active force supported by a broad sector in the street.

According to sources who spoke to Al Jazeera Net, the Al-Burhan and Hamdok agreement was reached after local mediation and initiatives led by party and national figures to find a way out of the political crisis, and that the mediators dismissed all the leaders of the parties accused from the military component of confusing the situation with the exception of the Umma Party leadership whose leader Fadlallah Barama Nasser worked With intermediaries away from party institutions.

Indeed, the Federal Gathering parties, the Sudanese Congress and the Umma Party rushed to issue statements immediately after news of the agreement was leaked, confirming that they are not part of these agreements, and adhere to working to resist the "revolutionaries" until they are overthrown, according to the statement of the Sudanese Congress, whose president and a number of leaders are arrested by the authorities.

The National Umma Party spokesperson, Al-Wathiq Al-Barer, also announced their rejection of any agreement that does not address the roots of the crisis produced by the military coup and its repercussions, including the killing of the revolutionaries that require accountability, while the political body of the Federal Gathering announced its alignment with the street’s stance and the escalation of the political struggle against the “coup council” until it handed over power to a civilian government. pure.

And the positions of the three parties themselves were supported by the Central Council for Freedom and Change, declaring its rejection of any negotiation or partnership with the coup group, as it calls it, and said in a statement that undermining the legitimate regime, overturning the constitution, killing peaceful revolutionaries and revolutionaries, enforced disappearance and other documented crimes are all reasons that require the presentation of leaders The coup, the opportunists and the remnants of the defunct regime who formed this authority to immediate trials.

The Central Council statement added, "We are not interested in any agreement with this junta, and we will work by all peaceful and tested methods to bring it down."

Although the political agreement signed between Al-Burhan and Hamdok talked about amending the constitutional document by consensus, in order to achieve comprehensive political participation for all components of society, except for the dissolved National Congress Party, the opposition of the Forces of Freedom and Change to the principle of negotiation makes the political situation more tense and turbulent.

From the point of view of the Darfur Bar Association, the constitutional document is "flawed", and will not be suitable for a proper constitutional foundation, and it indicates in a statement that according to the same document, Hamdok was appointed prime minister, and that the forces that brought him are the ones who represent the other party in the flawed constitutional document, and then Hamdok may not conclude any political agreement or declaration on behalf of the forces mentioned in the constitutional document or on behalf of the revolution and revolutionaries.