Sudan’s Bashir forms new government

Bashir announced the cabinet line-up late Saturday, appointing his presidential assistant Ibrahim Ghandour as foreign minister, while Mohamed Zayed took over as oil minister, state-run broadcaster al-Sudan reported.

The 71-year-old president removed long-time Defense Minister Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein and appointed Lieutenant General Mustafa Osman Obeid, the army’s chief of staff, as acting defense minister.

Bashir reappointed both of his vice presidents, Bakri Hassan Saleh and Hassabo Mohamed Abdelrahman, to the same positions.

According to al-Sudan, the new government would be made up of 31 cabinet ministers.
Early on Sunday, Bashir also issued a decree that appointed governors for the African country’s 18 states. The former defense minister, Hussein, was appointed governor of Khartoum State.
Bashir won the presidential election in April with 94 percent of the votes.

He dissolved his last cabinet on June 2, when he was sworn in for a new five-year term. During the swearing-in ceremony, winning the election, he pledged to open a “new page” for Sudan and said he would restore ties with the West and tackle corruption.

Bashir came to power in a coup in 1989. He faces charges of genocide by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the 2003 conflict in the western region of Darfur. According to the United Nations, the conflict claimed the lives of more than 300,000 people and displaced over 2.5 million.
/SR