Sudanese opposition rejects military's schedule for elections

Sudan's opposition rejected on Tuesday a plan by military authorities to hold elections within nine months, a prominent opposition figure said, after the country's worst day of violence since ex-president Omar al-Bashir was ousted in April.

"We reject all that was stated in (Transitional Military Council Head Abdel Fattah) al-Burhan's statement," said Madani Abbas Madani, a leading figure in the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces opposition alliance.

The Council said earlier on Tuesday it was canceling all agreements with the main opposition coalition and called for elections within nine months.

Madani said an open-ended civil disobedience campaign would continue to force the military council from power.

SUDANESE PROTESTERS DEFIANT AFTER ARMY CRACKDOWN
Thousands of Sudanese pro-democracy protesters remain defiant of the country's military rulers, a day after the main sit-in site in the capital was violently emptied by security forces. Protest organizers say 35 people died in the bloodshed.

An Associated Press journalist saw protesters still building up barricades in the suburbs of Khartoum on Tuesday.

Nazim Sirraj, a leading activist in the Sudanese Professionals' Association, which has spearheaded the protests, says thousands of people celebrated the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr on Tuesday.

The military had said the Eid would begin Wednesday.

Mohammed Yousef al-Mustafa, a spokesman for the SPA, said the military's decision on Eid was an effort to keep people in their homes after Monday's "massacre."

The holiday traditionally involves people gathering outdoors for group prayers in the early morning.

Sirraj says people took to the streets to call for toppling the generals, who themselves ousted longtime strongman Omar al-Bashir in April.