Hamdok evicts some FFC nominees from Sudan’s transitional cabinet
September 1, 2019 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’ Prime Minister has added a female minister and a minister from South Kordofan to his government in a bid to form a balanced and harmonious team.
Abdallah Hamdok met on Saturday evening with the leaders of the FFC blocks and the nomination committee to discuss the nominations they made several days ago.
Sources close to the meeting told Sudan Tribune the prime minister put aside the FFC nominees, and proposed a woman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and picked another candidate from the Nuba Mountains for the Council of Federal Affairs and Local Governments.
Also, he proposed to appoint of the nominee for the foreign ministry as the minister of the cabinet affairs and declined to appoint Madani Abbas Madani who was the only known FFC negotiator to be nominated to join the government.
Seemingly, the Madani’s eviction has been badly appreciated by the FFC groups as they counted on him to link between the large coalition and the cabinet of technocrats.
According to the source, the prime minister has, actually, kept 13 of 18 ministers and changed the rest.
The FFC leadership council and the nomination committee will meet on Sunday evening to discuss and endorse the new cabinet before to be formally appointed by the Sovereign Council.
However, it remains unclear if the FFC forces will approve the changes Hamdok proposed or will reject some of it.
The parties have an agreement that the prime minister should have discretionary power in the selection of his government.
Also, Hamdok made it clear that he would not accept all the nominations made by the FFC if he feels a need to review their list.
(ST)