Sudan’s military on Tuesday announced that elections will be conducted in the country within the next nine months. The military council has also canceled all sorts of talks with the main opposition and protest coalition related to the formation of a sovereign council. The announcement was made by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in the early hours of Tuesday.
“The military council decided to stop negotiating with the Alliance for Freedom and Change [group representing protesters in negotiations] and cancel what had been agreed on and to hold general elections within nine months,” al-Burhan said in a statement broadcast on state television, reported BBC.
He added that the Transitional Military Council (TMC) will now set up an interim government to prepare for elections, which he added would be internationally supervised.
The latest development follows clashed between the security forces and protestors on Monday. According to a group of doctors linked to the opposition, around 35 people were killed and hundreds more were injured when security forces stormed a protest camp outside the Defense Ministry in central Khartoum and launched heavy gunfire. The death toll is expected to rise.
The sit-in camp in front of the military headquarters in Khartoum has been the focal point in the demonstrators’ months-long struggle for civilian rule. The military ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir on April 11 after months of mass protests against his three-decade rule.
In the wake of the Monday violence, the pro-democracy movement leaders said they have cut all contact with the TMC and called for total civil disobedience and a general strike to topple the military council.
The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) has the people of Sudan to go out on Tuesday to hold Eid prayers to mark the end of Ramadan, pray for all those who were killed on Monday and then demonstrate peacefully.
