By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Burhan, on Monday named a former UN official and the country’s ex-presidential candidate as Prime Minister of the military-led government.
Kamil Idris’s emergence comes after the April appointment of diplomat Dafallah al-Haj Ali as acting Prime Minister, a move that appears not to have taken effect.
This is the first time since a 2021 coup that ousted the country’s civilian leadership that a substantive Prime Minister has been appointed.
The role of the Prime Minister in the interim government, which has been in a deadly fight with the paramilitary organisation Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since 2023, is not clearly spelled out.
Earlier on Monday, Burhan re-appointed Salma Abdel Jabbar Almubarak to the ruling Sovereign Council and also appointed Nowara Abo Mohamed Mohamed Tahir to that governing body.
A new civilian Prime Minister and overhauled government were expected to be formed after the army took control of the capital, Khartoum, from the RSF in late March.
War broke out in April 2023 between the two forces after they disagreed on integrating their forces, devastating the country.
The two forces had collaborated in carrying out a coup in 2021 that derailed a transition to democracy following the ousting of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
The RSF has dealt a blow to the army-led government with a series of drone attacks in recent weeks on the wartime capital of Port Sudan.
