Sudan rulers want Sharia law to guide legislation process

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Sudan's military rulers said on Tuesday they generally agreed with proposals made by protest leaders on the structure of an interim government, but want Islamic Sharia laws and local norms to guide legislation.

Protesters whose months of street demonstrations helped force longtime President Omar al-Bashir from office last month have kept up their demands for change, calling on the military officers who took over to hand over power to civilians.

Responding to a draft constitutional document presented by a coalition of protest groups and political parties, the ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC) noted that the document omitted Sharia law.

“Our view is that Islamic Sharia and the local norms and traditions in the Republic of Sudan should be the sources of legislation,” TMC spokesman Lieutenant General Shams El Din Kabbashi told reporters.

He also said the council believes that the power to declare a state of emergency in the country should go to a sovereign authority, not the Cabinet as the opposition suggested. The transitional period should last two years, not four, which was the opposition's proposal, he said.

Discussions with the opposition were ongoing, but calling early elections within six months would be an option if they could not reach an agreement, Kabbashi said.

Former intelligence chief Salah Gosh was under house arrest, he added.

Another council member said more than four members of the TMC had resigned and that the TMC was dismantling an unofficial militia group, known as Popular Security, which was operated by Bashir's party.

This came after Sudanese forces seized explosives belts, guns including rifles fitted with silencers, devices used to detonate explosives remotely and satellite telephones in a raid on a property in the capital Khartoum, on Monday

(Cover: Sudanese anti-regime demonstrators stand on an army armored military vehicle, April 11, 2019. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): Reuters