Khartoum, August 22: As the country embarked on a three-year transition to civilian rule earlier this month, Abdalla Hamdok took constitutional oath as prime minister on Wednesday (local time), state media reported. According to SUNA news agency, Hamdok was sworn in before Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, chairman of the newly-formed Sovereign Council, at the presidential palace in the capital Khartoum in presence of the chief justice.

Hamdok is expected to form a government of 20 ministers who will be selected by the opposition Freedom and Change Alliance on August 28, Xinhua reported.Under the deal recently signed by Sudan's Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the Freedom and Change Alliance, the Sovereign Council comprises 11 members: five military members chosen by the TMC, five civilian members chosen by the opposition alliance, and one civilian selected through consultation by the two sides.

The Sovereign Council automatically dissolved the TMC which had been running Sudan's affairs since the ouster of former President Omar al-Bashir on April 11. Hamdok, who obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Khartoum, a master's and a doctorate from the University of Manchester, was a senior official in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning during the 1980s.

Hamdok was the regional director for Africa and the Middle East of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance from 2003 to 2008.He worked as director of regional integration and trade for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in 2001 and 2002, and UNECA deputy executive secretary from 2011 to October 2018.In September 2018, Hamdok was named as the Sudanese minister of finance by al-Bashir, but he refused to accept the nomination.

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