Sudanese PM names three new ministers in technocratic government

July 3, 2025 (PORT SUDAN) – Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamal Idris on Thursday appointed new ministers for health, agriculture, and higher education, continuing the gradual formation of a non-partisan, technocratic government, the state news agency SUNA reported.

The appointments are part of Idris’s plan to build a 22-member “Government of Hope” to steer the country.

Idris named Muaz Omer Bakhit as health minister, Ismat Qureshi Abdallah as agriculture minister and irrigation, and Ahmed Madawi as minister for higher education.

The new health minister, Bakhit, is a neurologist and professor who founded the Princess Al-Jawhara Centre for Molecular Medicine in Bahrain. The new Minister of Agriculture, Abdallah, previously served as the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Khartoum. Madawi, the new Higher Education Minister, was the Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Khartoum’s Faculty of Medicine and was part of a team that discovered a new treatment for leishmaniasis in 2022.

The three newly appointed ministers appear to have been chosen based on a mix of professional competence and specific political leanings.

The Minister of Higher Education, Madawi, is described as explicitly non-political. In contrast, the Minister of Agriculture, Abdallah, reportedly supported the popular demonstrations that led to the fall of the former regime and became a strong supporter of the army after the war began. The new Minister of Health, Bakhit, who has resided in Bahrain for years, has been an open supporter of the December Revolution.

The appointments follow the naming of the defence and interior ministers on June 24, positions which fall under the oversight of the military during the country’s political transition.