Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok appointed four new advisors, including Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) deputy chairman Yasser Arman. He also dismissed the national auditor and assigned a replacement to him.
Hamdok’s decree also named Aisha Hamad Mohammed as a consultant for gender affairs, Ali Juma Abdullah as an adviser on governance and institutional reform and Hassan Nasrallah Ali Karar as a peace adviser.
Hamdok relieved Al-Tahir Abdul Qayyum Ibrahim from his position as a national auditor and assigned Fakhr al-Din Abdul Rahman Ali as an interim General Auditor.
The SPLM-N is part of the transitional authority under the Juba peace agreement. SPLM-N leader Malik Agar is a member of the Transitional Sovereign Council and Buthaina Dinar is the Federal Minister of Government.
The position of political advisor was offered to Arman after the resignation of the first government last February.
Arman ran in the 2010 elections as a representative of the SPLM before the secession of the South. He was pressured by several influential leaders in the movement to withdraw from the presidential race.
His sudden withdrawal surprised his supporters in the north, who saw him as a strong competitor against ousted President Omar al-Bashir.
At the time, SPLM-N said the withdrawal was due to security conditions in Darfur and doubts over the government’s intentions to hold free and fair elections.
Analysts believed the withdrawal was made as part of a deal with the Bashir government, which threatened to renounce the right to self-determination stipulated in the peace agreement.
