The Sudan Handbook

174 thE sudan handbook

vision. The Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) was created. In the

beginning, it assumed wide legislative and executive powers and, in

the absence of a constitution or a popular mandate, resorted to rule by

decree. The new power holders, however, knew that they would have to

establish proper political and constitutional bodies and try to secure a

measure of popular endorsement for those institutions and the regime

as a whole. In the immediate period following the takeover, the new

regime established what they called popular committees in urban neigh-

bourhoods and villages to take care of local services and partially fill the

vacuum resulting from the abolition of the local authority institutions. In

theory, these popular committees were to be elected by the people in each

neighbourhood or village. In practice, the process was tightly managed

by the new regime; and the newly established popular committees were

• unsurprisingly – dominated by Islamists.
  In 1992, the RCC appointed a ‘Transitional National Assembly’ to act as
  a legislative authority until the establishment of an elected parliament. In
  1993, the RCC dissolved itself and appointed Omar al-Bashir as President
  of the Republic. In August 1991, a ‘political system consultative confer-
  ence’ was convened; it remained in session until April 1992, with between
  800 and 2000 delegates attending. The conference resolved to adopt the
  ‘Congresses System’ formula as the governing political organization of the
  country. The process started in 1992 and was completed in 1995 with the
  establishment of the National Congress at the federal level. This process
  was accompanied by the reconstitution – again in a controlled manner –
  of trades unions, professional, women’s and youth organizations, all of
  which had been dissolved after the coup. In December 1995, the president
  approved Constitutional Decree No. 13 which provided for the election
  of a National [federal] Assembly composed of 400 seats, two-thirds
  of which were to be directly elected from geographical constituencies,
  with the remaining third elected from the congresses in accordance with
  the statutes and internal regulations of the latter. Through the period
  1993–1995, elections were held at the local, provincial and state levels to
  reconstitute local administration institutions and legislative authorities

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors for the 25 states under the federal system. In March 1996, elections were

(www.riftvalley.net).