SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Reuters - EXCLUSIVE- Draft Sudan deal seeks to cement military's grip

7/4/2022: Reuters - EXCLUSIVE- Draft Sudan deal seeks to cement military's grip, by Khalid Abdelaziz

Reuters report that factions aligned with Sudan's military have drawn up a deal to form a transitional government that would cement the army's control and bypass pro-democracy groups it shared power with before the October 2021 coup.

Three sources from groups that back the draft deal, which has not been previously reported, said it had support from some political parties aligned with the military, former rebels who signed a peace deal in 2020, and some tribal and religious leaders, with the military reportedly seeking to broaden support for the draft deal by courting Sudan's two largest traditional parties, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Umma Party, or factions within them.

The deal would reportedly appoint a technocratic cabinet and parliament to govern until elections expected in 2023 while elevating the military as Sudan's paramount authority, diverging sharply from the power-sharing enshrined in the 2019 Constitutional Declaration.