Suggestions were made in June 2019 by a spokesperson of the Forces of Freedom and Change and in August 2019 by The Sudan Daily that Hamdok would be proposed as Prime Minister of Sudan by the FFC, which negotiated the 2019 Sudanese transition to democracy with the Transitional Military Council. The transition procedures were formally defined in the Political Agreement signed on 17 July 2019 by the FFC and TMC and the Draft Constitutional Declaration signed by the FFC and the TMC on 4 August 2019. The Sovereignty Council of Sudan appointed Hamdok to be Prime Minister on 20 August, as required by the Draft Constitutional Declaration. He was subsequently sworn in on 21 August. Under Article 19 of the August 2019 Draft Constitutional Declaration, as a minister during the transitional period, Hamdok is forbidden from running in the 2022 Sudanese general election scheduled to end the transitional period. As prime minister, Hamdok selected a cabinet of ministers. On 4 October 2019, he purged the leadership of public Sudanese universities, dismissing 28 chancellors and 35 vice-chancellors and appointed 34 vice-chancellors. The aim was to replace people in positions of power representing the al-Bashir government.
Assassination attempt
On 9 March 2020, Hamdok survived an assassination attempt in the capital Khartoum. The culprit has yet to be publicly identified. At least 3 vehicles were damaged in the attempt, but there were no human casualties except for one security officer who was "lightly wounded."
Views
Agriculture
Hamdok has pushed for a change from subsistence agriculture to "more dynamic, commercial oriented" agriculture in Africa, stating in 2014 that Africa was capable of food self-sufficiency, but that 300 million Africans were hungry. Referring to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report estimate of the effects of a 2-degree Celsius global average warming above pre-industrial levels, Hamdok noted that effects such as reduced rainfall could prevent Africa from reducing extreme poverty. To combat hunger, Hamdok proposed infrastructure improvements ; the use of "climate information"; improved water management; and greater integration of agriculture with national industry and science and technology research institutions.
Women's rights
As Prime Minister, Hamdok had the role in late August 2019 of selecting ministers from a list of candidates proposed to him by the Forces of Freedom and Change, apart from the Ministers of Interior and Defence, to be chosen by military members of the Sovereignty Council. Hamdok delayed his decision on which candidates to select, stating that one his reasons for objecting was that too few women were present on the list. He stated that he would "take into account a fair representation of women". Four women became ministers in the Hamdok Cabinet: Asma Mohamed Abdalla as Foreign Minister, Lina al-Sheikh as Minister of Social Development and Labour, Wala'a Essam al-Boushi as Minister for Youth and Sports and Intisar el-Zein Soughayroun as Minister of Higher Education. In November 2019, the government of Sudan repealed all laws restricting women's freedom of dress, movement, association, work and study. Hamdok praised women in a message published on social media, saying that the laws were "an instrument of exploitation, humiliation, violation, aggression on the rights of citizens." In 2020, Hamdok passed a law to prohibit female genital mutilation. The change is an amendment to Sudan's Criminal Law Article 141. The act is defined as removing or mutilating "the female genitalia by cutting, mutilating or modifying any natural part of it leading to the full or partial loss of its functions."
Personal life
Hamdok married fellow economist Muna Abdalla in 1993 in south Manchester. They have 2 grown-up sons; one studying at Exeter University as of 2019 and one who graduated from a university in the United States in the late 2010s.
