Khartoum -

It was officially announced in Khartoum that a political agreement would soon be reached between the Sudanese parties, and it is expected that it will contribute significantly to easing the tension and crisis left by the actions of the army commander, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, in October 2021, when he dissolved the Sovereign Council and the transitional ministers, and dismissed Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok.

According to the leaders of the Freedom and Change Coalition, which was expelled from power, understandings took place with the military component and are expected to culminate in the signing of a framework agreement within 10 days, to be followed by another detailed one within a month.

The leaders of the coalition spoke at a press conference last Wednesday, after the Central Council approved the vision of the political process that would end the "coup," stressing that the negotiations that took place with the military guaranteed civilian rule, which practically means the withdrawal of the army from power and the abolition of the current military council.

The agreement - which will be signed in two phases - also included that the cabinet be entirely civilian.

This means that the ministries of interior and defense will not be held by military commanders, as was the case in the past.

The understandings in the first phase between the Forces for Freedom and Change, the army, and the parties to the peace agreement focus on understanding the formation of the civil authority, provided that the second phase proceeds to negotiating the details of the framework agreement and its development.

The agreement will be joined by forces that advocated change and were not part of the Freedom and Change Coalition, including the Popular Congress, the Democratic Unionist Party (the original), and other parties, all of which will be allowed to participate in choosing government and legislative institutions, if they sign the political declaration, which is the complementary document to the draft constitution of the Bar Association, which It was mainly chosen to solve the political crisis.


A government without parties

And the army commander, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, announced last week understandings with the Forces for Freedom and Change, and stressed at the same time that the next agreement will not be bilateral, and also revealed that he had received pledges from the leaders of the coalition he was negotiating not to participate in the new government, and that it would not be partisan like its predecessor and would consist of independent faces.

The head of the United Nations Mission in Sudan, Volker Peretz, the African Union ambassador in Khartoum, Muhammad Belaish, and the IGAD envoy, Ismail Weiss, published - the week before last - a joint article in which they talked about the tripartite mechanism that "will call for direct and indirect talks in the coming days, to translate the understandings." reached under an enforceable agreement.

The joint article stated that civilians seek a civilian government with full executive powers and institutional and personal guarantees, while the military component does not want unelected civilians to interfere in army affairs during the transitional period.

The people are also calling for a government capable of providing basic services, among other issues.

"All of these demands can be achieved based on the understandings reached by the military and civilians, but some issues still need to be resolved, including questions related to transitional justice," they added in the article.

The same thing was confirmed by a senior leader in Freedom and Change to Al-Jazeera Net, by saying that 4 cases in which no agreement was reached with the army;

It is about immunities, transitional justice, security and military reform, how to deal with the Juba Peace Agreement and dismantle the pillars of the former regime.

He points out that the framework agreement stipulates that the forces of the revolution will choose the prime minister, who in turn will be the head of the Security and Defense Council, just as the forces of the revolution will choose the Sovereignty Council in the form that we agree to form.

Al-Jazeera Net learned that the Freedom and Change Alliance authorized two of its leaders - the lawyer Taha Othman and the Secretary-General of the Umma Party, Al-Wathiq Al-Barir - to meet with the army and reach current understandings, as they sat directly with Al-Burhan and his deputy, Muhammad Hamdan "Hamidti".

Demonstration in Khartoum to demand the return of civilian rule (Reuters)

Rejected and promised

Meanwhile, the voices opposing the expected agreement are expanding amidst several political currents and blocs, some of which declared their determination to resist and reject it, while the resistance committees - which are leading the street protests - appear to be the most stringent towards rejecting the expected settlement as long as it does not include the removal of the leaders of the Military Council from power and holding them accountable for their actions. "The violations committed since October 25, 2021 and earlier, when 119 people were killed during the wave of protests and at least 7,000 were injured," according to medical statistics.

And the Sudanese People’s Initiative bloc stands out as one of the facades that reject the expected settlement, and its spokesman Hisham Al-Shawani says that they did not receive confirmation from the army that the agreement with the Forces for Freedom and Change was close, and added that “if we are sure of that, then our choice will be to resist this agreement, and work to bring down any government that According to the reference of the Sudanese Bar Association Constitution.

Al-Shawani told Al-Jazeera Net that their rejection of the agreement is based on the presence of some external parties that are pushing to sign a bilateral agreement that would restore the situation to before last October 25, adding, "We will definitely not accept."

The spokesman also expressed his conviction that the chances of success of the upcoming agreement appear weak and fragile, and bet on its downfall "because a large and diverse bloc will reject it."

Great chances of success

On the contrary, a member of the Media Committee of the Alliance for Freedom and Change, Mohamed Abdel-Hakam, believes that the imminent agreement with the military has a very great chance of success, especially as it is based on a broad desire of what he called the critical bloc that represents most of the Sudanese people to end the coup, restore international aid and bring about political stability. .

And Abdel-Hakam indicates - in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net - that the political process that is currently proceeding achieves in many of its elements the goals of the revolutionaries and their demands with regard to achieving justice, returning the army to the barracks, achieving the civil state and sovereignty over military institutions, given that the civilian president in the sovereign structure is the supreme commander of the forces armed.

And he continues, "What increases the chances of the success of the political process is that we have recently witnessed a clear seriousness on the part of the other party in the military establishment and its desire to end the coup and hand over power to civilians."

At the same time, he acknowledges that many obstacles may stand in the way of the intended settlement.

Among them are the movements of the supporters of the isolated regime to corrupt and subvert the political scene by various means through the civilian levels, or by planting cells within the armed forces to cause “confusion” in the scene, and perhaps to carry out a coup;

This requires the other party to control the military institution and oblige it to the final outputs of the agreement, he said.

Abdel-Hakam expects to reach an agreement within 10 days, especially since the first phase of the agreement will be to collect perceptions about the military's observations and the response to freedom and change.

He said that it will be a "stage of a great national debate" on the four issues that are still under discussion.


high chances

In turn, journalist Othman Fadlallah supports expectations that the upcoming agreement has a high chance of success if it finds real international support, pointing out that it is backed by major and influential forces in the arena.

In his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, he indicates that the signals coming from the army confirm a degree of seriousness in dealing with the upcoming agreement, including silencing the military voices rejecting the settlement, as the editor-in-chief of the Armed Forces newspaper, who was known for his strong criticism of the forces of freedom and change, was dismissed during the past hours.

At the same time, Fadlallah warns that failure to reach clear understandings regarding the file of justice and satisfying a large number of the families of the victims would threaten the agreement.

And he adds, "I do not think that the opposition to the settlement will be easy, as the street protests will not stop, but may even expand, but all of this can be dealt with in ways that confirm the seriousness of the military in implementing the agreement and marketing it by achieving the demands of the revolutionaries not to close the bridges, to dismantle the defunct regime, to stop the violence against the protests, and to achieve Justice for the victims and accountability for the perpetrators.