The African Union (AU) has given Sudan’s Transitional Military Council (TMC) a further two months to hand over power to a civilian-led transition team.

The latest ultimatum which was issued on Tuesday becomes the third deadline in under two months. The current and first deadlines were issued by the AU’s Peace and Security Council.

The first deadline of 15 days was issued days after President Omar al-Bashir was ousted by the military following months of anti-government protests which started in December last year.

The second deadline followed a special AU summit that was held in Cairo and chaired by its current president, Abdel Fatteh Al-Sisi of Egypt.  The continental union gave the Sudanese military three months to regularize the power situation.

A communiqué issued by the AU read in part: “5. Decides to extend the deadline set in paragraph 5 (C) of the communiqué of its 840th meeting for an additional period of up to sixty (60) days for the military in The Sudan to hand over power to a civilian-led Transitional Authority.

“In this context, emphasizes that this final extension is granted to enable the putting in place of a civilian-led Transitional Authority and therefore, demands that the following steps be taken:

“(i) The Military and the Sudanese stakeholders should continue to work together towards urgently completing the negotiations and agreeing on the composition of a civilian-led Transitional Authority;

“(ii) The Military and the Sudanese stakeholders should finalize all transitional arrangements, including modalities, duration and priorities of the transition, as well as legislative and judicial structures, that will lead to the restoration of constitutional order.”

Although the military and protest leaders have been in talks over the past few weeks, they have serially failed to reach an agreement on the composition of a new government.