Leading opposition figure and former Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi said yesterday Sudan could face a counter coup if military rulers and the opposition do not reach agreement on a handover of power to civilians.
Mahdi, Sudan’s last democratically elected premier, said hardliners in ousted President Omar Hassan al- Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) and its allies in the army would try to exploit the uncertainty to seize power.
“For them to attempt a counter coup is most probable. All the time they are conspiring,” Mahdi, 83, said in an interview with Reuters at his home in the capital Khartoum.
“The whole group is well versed in conspiracy. The conspiratorial mind is ingrained in them.”
Meanwhile, three of the most controversial figures of the ruling Transitional Military Council have offered their resignations, one of the key demands of the protest movement. The three generals were seen as staunch Is- lamists and allies of al-Bashir. It follows talks between the military council and protest leaders.
Mahdi was himself over- thrown in a bloodless coup by Bashir in 1989 and imprisoned. Bashir fell after weeks of mass demonstrations and
the Sudanese Professionals’ Association, the main pro- test organizer, called for a million-strong march to take place later on Thursday to press for civilian rule.
Mahdi predicted that Su- dan’s generals would relinquish power if the current stalemate were broken. “I think their intentions are good,” he said of the senior army officers who overthrew Bashir on April 11, three decades after he himself seized power, and then formed the TMC.