Gen Mohamed Dagalo, commander of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces, has been selected to head an alliance of political parties and rebel groups, seen as a step towards setting up a parallel government in areas held by the paramilitary.
The Foundation Alliance, better known by its acronym Taasees, met in the RSF-held city of Nyala in Darfur on Tuesday and selected a 31-member leadership with Gen Dagalo as its head. Abdul Aziz Al Helu, commander of a powerful rebel group active in south and south-west Sudan, was selected as his deputy.
"The selection followed a series of plenary meetings that were transparent and serious," Taasees spokesman Alaaeldeen Noqd said in a statement.
He described the alliance, founded in Kenya in February, as a national platform that aims to "dismantle the old Sudan by confronting its sociopolitical legacy and the creation of a new state on the basis of a social contract that enshrines just peace, equal citizenship and comprehensive justice".
The formation of the alliance comes amid a devastating civil war between Gen Dagalo's RSF and the armed forces led by Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan. After 26 months of fighting, the RSF controls all of Darfur region in the West, except the city of El Fasher, and parts of Kordofan to the south-west; the army controls the capital, eastern, central and northern Sudan.
"The announcement in Nyala is the prelude to creating a government. Taasees is the equivalent of a ruling party that will inevitably announce a government," said Osman Mirghany, a prominent Sudanese analyst.
"The whole process is designed to give the Rapid Support Forces a political arm or support base to use as a bargaining chip if negotiations to end the war were to start," he said, alluding to plans to convene a meeting on Sudan in Washington that would bring representatives of regional powerhouses like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE to lay out a road map to end the war.
The US and Saudi Arabia brokered a series of ceasefires during the early days of the war, but they proved to be short-lived. The army now insists it will continue fighting until the RSF is defeated.
Gen Al Burhan named a career UN diplomat, Kamil Idris, as prime minister in May to head a 22-member government based in the eastern city of Port Sudan, on the Red Sea coast. Only two portfolios – defence and interior – have been filled so far as rebel groups now aligned with the military demand proportionate representation.
The war between the RSF and the army, essentially over control of the vast and resource-rich country, has claimed tens of thousands of lives, displaced about 14 million and left half of the 50 million population facing hunger.
Both Gen Dagalo and Gen Al Burhan claim to be fighting for a democratic and prosperous Sudan. However, the pair face accusations by the UN and rights groups of war crimes committed during the current conflict.
The RSF has pivoted its political narrative to the pursuit of equal rights for Sudan's so-called marginalised citizens, a reference to the inhabitants of such outlying regions like Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile.
However, it has been accused by the UN and the International Criminal Court of ethnic cleansing against African tribes in Darfur and of sexual assaults in the capital Khartoum and central Sudan.
The army is accused of reckless shelling that is believed to have killed thousands of civilians since the war began.
Both Gen Dagalo and Gen Al Burhan have been sanctioned by the US for war crimes.
Mohammed Latif, another Sudanese analyst, said the consequences of Tuesday's announcement by Taasees would invariably lead to a government that runs RSF-held areas.
"We will then have a government in eastern Sudan and another one in western Sudan, a situation that to some degree mirror that in Libya," he said, alluding to the emergence of two rival administrations in Sudan's neighbour after an uprising toppled dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
"It will enshrine the partition of Sudan, which every one has been warning against."
