Abdalla Hamdok rose to power in 2019 after the ouster of Sudan’s longtime dictator. Credit...Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters
Mr. Hamdok was restored to power a month ago after being deposed in a coup, but he was never able to gain control of the fractious country.
A protest in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, on Sunday.Credit...Marwan Ali/Associated Press
By thedispatch Staff
SUDAN’S PRIME MINISTER, who was ousted in a military coup but reinstated over a month ago, resigned on Sunday, in the latest upheaval to disrupt the country’s shaky transition to democracy from dictatorship.
The decision by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok came as widespread protests gripped the northeast African nation.
Protesters denounced not just the coup that unseated Mr. Hamdok in October but also the deal that returned him to power in November.
Opposition political groups and other major political forces rejected it as an unacceptable concession to the military, which has controlled Sudan for most of its history since it became an independent state more than six decades ago.
In a televised address on Sunday evening, Mr. Hamdok said that repeated mediation attempts had failed in recent days and that the country needed to engage in a new dialogue to chart a path toward a democratic, civilian state.
His speech came just hours after security forces killed three protesters, according to the pro-democracy Central Committee of Sudan Doctors, pushing the total number of people killed in the two months since the coup to 57.
For weeks, amid speculation that the prime minister might step down, local and international leaders pressed Mr. Hamdok to hold fast.
But in the end, it did not work.
“I tried as much as I could to avoid our country from sliding into disaster,” Mr. Hamdok said as he announced his resignation.
“But despite my efforts to achieve the desired and necessary consensus to give citizens security, peace, justice and to stop bloodshed, that did not happen.”
Source: New York Times (Today)
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