The Forces for Freedom and Change (FLC), the backbone of the civilian government sacked during the October 25, 2021 putsch, called for «maintaining popular pressure» after denouncing General Burhane’s proposal as a «treason» and a «tactics» to maintain the military’s stranglehold on politics and the economy.

On Monday and to everyone’s surprise, the Sudanese number one announced his intention to give way to a civilian government by replacing the Sovereign Council, the highest authority in the country over which he presides, with a Supreme Council of the Armed Forces which will be responsible only questions of security and defence.

The FLC refused to form a government before the departure of General Burhane and strongly doubted his intentions.

But the general has begun to put in place the first steps of his plan. He sacked on Wednesday the five civilian members of the Sovereign Council he had appointed after the coup and who were thought to play only a minor role.

Some of these five personalities, apolitical and little known to the public, told the local press that they had received no official notification, discovering, surprised, that they no longer had their company vehicles.

– Barricades, camps –

In the street and despite the death a week ago of nine demonstrators in the repression, the mobilization against the putschist general continues for the seventh consecutive day.

Hundreds of women gathered in Khartoum on Wednesday shouting «the blood of martyrs was not shed in vain», as 114 protesters were killed and thousands injured in the anti-coup crackdown since October, according to a report. union of pro-democracy doctors.

«The soldiers in the barracks, the women in the street», they also chanted.

«This parade is to remember the role of women in our revolution,» said one of them, Tahani Omar, to AFP.

The demonstrators set up new barricades and encampments in Khartoum and its suburbs. And they declared a new indefinite sit-in in Wad Madani, 200 km south of Khartoum.

«We will not leave here until we get a civilian government,» a protester in Wad Madani told AFP on Tuesday, Mahmoud Mirghani.

«We launched the sit-in in response to Burhane’s speech, we want freedom, peace, justice and a civilian government,» added another protester, Safa Abderrahim.

– «Wolf in sheep’s clothing» –

During the popular uprising that toppled General Omar al-Bashir in 2019, protesters maintained their sit-ins for eight months. They had then obtained that the army shares power with the civilians to lead the country towards its first democratic elections.

But during the putsch, General Burhane confiscated power from civilians, dismissing all civilians from the government and the Sovereign Council, putting an end to the transition.

After the coup general’s announcement, the UN hoped for «an opportunity to reach an agreement» and the United States called for «a civilian-led government» and «free elections».

For Yasser Arman, executive of the FLC, «Burhane’s speech is aimed above all at the international community, some of whose members want quick solutions favoring stability over democracy».

«Burhane wants to choose a Prime Minister who will be a wolf in sheep’s clothing and will take his orders from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, so the army will retain sovereign and executive powers under the pretext of a political solution,» he said. said.

For the street too, the nerve of war is in the empty state coffers in a country deprived of international aid since the putsch and plunged into a socio-economic crisis.

«Burhane must bring to justice all those who killed (protesters) and he is the first of them,» said a protester in Khartoum on condition of anonymity.