Veteran Sudanese political and religious leader Mohamed Osman al-Mirghani arrived in Khartoum from Egypt on Monday, rejecting any possible agreement between pro-democracy political parties and the military.
Al-Mirghani had been living in Egypt for about 10 years, and his arrival in Khartoum came after military leaders and the former ruling coalition of the Forces for Freedom and Change said that they had reached understandings, including the army's exit from politics.
A few days ago, he announced his support for the armed forces, and his rejection of foreign interference in his country, as he put it.
Western and Gulf mediators and the United Nations are trying to break the stalemate that prevailed after the Sudanese army seized power 13 months ago, stopping the course of the political transition that followed the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir in 2019 after he led Sudan for 30 years.
Al-Mirghani, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party of origin - one of the most important Sudanese blocs, and the large Sufi Khatmiyya sect - received thousands of his followers while they were beating drums at Khartoum's main airport.
Al-Mirghani's party was the owner of the second largest parliamentary bloc before the rescue regime, and it opposed Al-Bashir's government from its early days, then left Sudan in 2013 for Egypt.
The Democratic Unionist Party originally enjoys a strong support base in rural Sudan, but has recently been embroiled in a conflict between the two sons of al-Mirghani, Jaafar, who is allied with the rebel groups opposed to the agreement, and al-Hassan, who supports it.
Al-Mirghani rejected, in a video statement, published on Wednesday, the hasty agreement and foreign interference in the political crisis, and appointed Jaafar, who has close ties in the ranks of the party, as his deputy.
He said, "The hasty steps in the wrong directions and the rush to include solutions before their time may bring corruption and great harm," recalling previous experiences of foreign-brokered agreements.
3 sources in the Democratic Unionist Party said that Al-Mirghani's return aims to end the dispute in favor of Jaafar and against the agreement, a move they said threatens to divide the party further.
The Democratic Unionist Party, which at its founding supported maintaining unity with Egypt after Sudan gained independence in 1956, has close relations with the Egyptian authorities.