Sudan’s National Accord Forces announce political vision

The National Accord Forces (NFA), formerly called Forces for Freedom and Change-National Accord (FFC-NA), signed a political declaration on Tuesday aiming to achieve civilian rule and the formation of a sovereign ruling body for the next 30 months.

The members of the FDC-NA breakaway faction signed four documents that pave the way to complete the transitional period and prepare for elections, chairman Mubarak Ardol tweeted around noon.

He mentioned the political declaration includes constitutional amendments, criteria for choosing a prime minister and the government, and the proposed programme for the transitional government.

The NAF proposes the formation of a cabinet of 26 ministers and a legislative council of 400 members. They also proposed a definition of the tasks of the new transitional government and 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 NAF 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 and currently director of the Sudanese Company for Mineral Resources. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is an ally.

“What distinguishes this announcement is that it has brought together, for the first time during the transition, political forces, peace groups, native administrations, resistance committees, regional entities, Christian and Islamic clerics, civil society organisations, and other groups,” Ardol tweeted. “We will proceed together, based on our determination, and show the utmost flexibility and responsibility to address the circumstances that our country is going through in order to reach peace.”

In July, the NAF announced the formation of a committee headed by rebel leader Minni Minawi, head of the Sudan Liberation Movement-MM who is currently Governor of Darfur, that is "to communicate with the other components of the political arena". The group 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.

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.