Nov 25th 2021ADDIS ABABA AND KHARTOUMTHE FIRST the Sudanese public saw of their leader in almost a month was a visibly strained Abdalla Hamdok, the civilian prime minister, attempting to put a positive spin on the agreement he had just signed with the man who had briefly ousted him in a coup. In a short televised ceremony Mr Hamdok (on the right) said he had accepted the deal to end the bloodshed that had roiled Khartoum, the capital, since his arrest on October 25th. Joining hands with the very men who had locked him up, would, he insisted, “prevent our country from plunging into the unknown”. In response, jeering demonstrators outside the presidential palace burnt tires, erected barricades and chanted, “Hamdok has sold the revolution.” Police fired tear-gas. A 16-year-old protester was shot dead.Listen to this storyYour browser does not support the element.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android.For the man who upended Sudan’s transition to democracy by launching the coup, things are going swimmingly. Lieutenant-General Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s de facto president (on the left), praised Mr Hamdok, declaring that the agreement was a “clear defence of the revolution” of two years previously, when demonstrators toppled Omar al-Bashir, a ruthless Islamist despot who had ruled Sudan for three decades. Back then the generals had seized power in a coup only to begrudgingly sign a coalition agreement with the leaders of the protests a few months later. This time, though, the men with guns who have ruled Sudan for almost all its post-independence history have largely got their way.The deal reinstates Mr Hamdok as prime minister and reaffirms the principle of partnership between civilians and the armed forces that underlies the power-sharing pact of 2019. People detained in the coup, among them members of the cabinet, are to be released. But the elections once promised for 2022 will now take place no earlier than mid-2023. In the meantime Mr Hamdok serves at the pleasure of Mr Burhan, who appears to have the power to dismiss him or any of his ministers. This rather undermines what Dr Adam Elhiraika, an adviser to the prime minister, describes as a benefit of the new arrangements: that Mr Hamdok can appoint a cabinet of civilian technocrats.The generals are in a stronger position now in other ways, too. In the weeks since the coup Mr Burhan has stacked the bureaucracy with loyalists. The “sovereign council”, which oversees the cabinet, was originally conceived as a joint military-civilian body, but now consists almost exclusively of men with guns. It includes Mr Burhan’s deputy, Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti), a warlord from the country’s Darfur region who heads a notorious paramilitary unit. And it contains several rebel leaders from Darfur and southern Sudan who joined the government as allies of the generals after a peace agreement last year. The civilian coalition that led the protest movement no longer has a seat at the table.Foreign governments have cautiously welcomed the deal. America, which responded swiftly to the coup by freezing some $700m in aid, said it was “encouraged”, but warned the junta not to use excessive force against protesters. “The West seems basically happy so long as Hamdok is back,” says Magdi el-Gizouli of the Rift Valley Institute, a think-tank with offices in London and Nairobi. The African Union, which suspended Sudan after the coup, is considering reinstating it. Pushing for this is Egypt, which, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, is a staunch ally of Mr Burhan and is thought to have encouraged his putsch.The Sudanese Professionals Association, which spearheaded the previous uprising, denounced the deal as “treasonous”. In Khartoum and other towns resistance is mounting. Barricades have sprung up across the capital, where neighbourhood committees are organising protests. “We’ve been betrayed,” says Mona Awad, a demonstrator who narrowly dodged being hit by a tear-gas canister in front of the palace. Since the coup 41 people have been killed and hundreds more detained. Ms Awad is not deterred: “Either we die like them or we get our rights.” ■This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Coup de grâce”