Presidential Decree No. 19 of 2026 scraps the 2024 framework under which civil administrations were set up in RSF-held areas, as the Tasis government moves towards the decentralised system set out in its 2025 constitution.
Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, chairman of the Presidential Council of the Sudan Founding Alliance (Tasis), on Friday 30 October issued a decree dissolving the civil administrations and founding councils in South, Central, East and West Darfur and West Kordofan, The Sudan Times reported.
Presidential Decree No. 19 of 2026 abolishes the Civil Administrations Document of 2024, the framework under which local administrations were set up in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) during the war. According to The Sudan Times, it was issued under Article 65 of the 2025 Transitional Constitution. The text was published on the RSF's Telegram channel, Roayah News reported.
What the decree does
Both outlets report that the decree:
- dissolves the civil administrations and founding councils in the five states, together with their subordinate bodies, units and structures;
- relieves heads of civil administrations, council chairs, advisers and executive officials appointed under the old framework, and ends all mandates based solely on it;
- requires outgoing officials to hand over records, official seals, funds, equipment and other public assets;
- assigns existing competent authorities to keep public services running on a temporary basis until laws on decentralised and local government are completed;
- bars the creation of substitute administrations or councils, or permanent appointments to them, unless authorised by new legislation or by the competent body.
The decree does not say when the new local government framework will be in place, and its practical effect on services and personnel is not yet clear, The Sudan Times noted. North Darfur, where the Tasis cabinet has begun holding meetings in El Fasher, is not among the states named.
Building state institutions
The decree is the latest in a series of steps by the Government of Peace and Unity, established by Tasis in 2025 and based in Nyala, to replace wartime arrangements with formal institutions. Earlier this year it set up a Security and Defence Council to oversee new military, police and intelligence bodies, and on 26 October The Sudan Times reported, citing Darfur24, that Idris Madallal had been appointed head of a new Security and Intelligence Service.
Analysis: Tasis has made decentralisation and regional autonomy central to its political programme, presenting them as an answer to Sudan's historically centralised state. Dissolving the 2024 administrations, which were set up under wartime conditions, brings local government under the 2025 constitutional framework. The test will be whether the promised local government laws follow quickly enough to avoid a vacuum in services in states that are already facing serious food shortages.
Photo: Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo in Moscow, February 2022. Russian Government, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.