Raja Nicola

Raja Nicola Eissa Abdel-Masih
رجاء نيقولا عيسى عبد المسيح
Member of the Transitional Sovereignty Council
Assumed office
11 November 2021
In office
21 August 2019 – 25 October 2021
Personal details
BornOmdurman
Occupationjudge[1]

Raja Nicola Eissa Abdel-Masih[2] (Arabic: رجاء نيقولا عيسى عبد المسيح) is a civilian member of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, Sudan's collective transitional head of state. She was chosen for this position[3] as one of six civilians to hold seats in the original 11-member council. She was the only one of them whose name was agreed upon through a consensus between the Forces of Freedom and Change alliance (FFC) and the Transitional Military Council (TMC), as was foreseen under the terms of the Draft Constitutional Declaration of August 2019.[4][5] She is the only civilian member of the TSC to have been reinstated by Chairman Abdel Fattah al-Burhan after he seized power in the 2021 military coup d'état.[6]

As such she is, along with fellow council member Aisha Musa el-Said, one of the first two women in modern Sudanese history to hold the role equivalent to a federal minister and is also the first Christian (as a member of the Coptic minority) to hold such a high political office in the country.[1] As a judge, she is responsible in particular for the legal system in Sudan.[7]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference MEEye_glass_ceiling was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference SudTribune_SovCouncil_exists was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference SudTribune_Nicola was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference raisethevoices_4Aug2019_const_dec was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Const_Dec_En_unofficial was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ "Sudan coup leader restores restructured Sovereignty Council". Radio Dabanga. Khartoum. 11 November 2021. Retrieved 26 March 2023.
  7. ^ "Raja Nicola meets delegation of Civil Registry Directorate". www.suna-sd.net (in Arabic). Retrieved 2021-06-23.