Sudan’s Hamdok resigns as prime minister

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said on Sunday he was resigning, less than two months after being reinstated as part of a political agreement with the military.

He was ousted in a military coup on October 25, following which protests rattled the African nation.

Hamdok, who had failed to name a government, said a roundtable discussion was needed to produce a new agreement for Sudan’s political transition to democracy.

“I decided to give back the responsibility and announce my resignation as prime minister, and give a chance to another man or woman of this noble country to ... help it pass through what’s left of the transitional period to a civilian democratic country,” Hamdok said in a televised address.

The announcement throws Sudan’s political future even deeper into uncertainty, three years after an uprising that led to the overthrow of long-time leader Omar Al Bashir.

The October military takeover upended a fragile planned transition to democratic rule following a popular uprising that forced the military’s overthrow of Omar Al Bashir.

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Abdalla Hamdok, a former UN official seen as the civilian face of Sudan’s transitional government, was reinstated in November amid international pressure in a deal that calls for an independent technocratic Cabinet under military oversight led by him.

That deal, however, was rejected by the pro-democracy movement, which insists that power be handed over to a fully civilian government tasked with leading the transition.

Hamdok defended the Nov. 21 deal with the military, saying that it was meant to preserve achievements his government made in the past two years, and to “protect our nation from sliding to a new international isolation.”

• Africa