The story is that Omar al-Bashir was forced to step down almost in the same way he came to power in Sudan in 1989. What appeared to have happened was an inside coup by the army and security forces who asked Al-Bashir not to resist the wave of popular protests and leave the power to the military after 30 years of presidency. A military council was launched with the participation of decade long friends of Al-Bashir and declared it will stay in power for two years and that is it! “Zero to Zero”!
This was by no means an achievement the people frustrated by the pressure of living costs and repression in divided Sudan, particularly after the creation of South Sudan in 2011 would have expected.
For the same reason, these people ignored the martial law and the ban on nightly traffic and, in the absence of strong leaders among opposition groups and parties or even the civil society, made another desperate attempt to move to a different future – perhaps by stepping in the air – but in any case, they began with the hope of getting rid of the 30-year rule of Al-Bashir.
Accordingly, the process of Sudan’s transformation in the near future and in the medium term will depend on two main factors, which ultimately in the context of action and reaction of these two factors, conditions will be provided where the mechanism for the continuation of Sudan’s life in a new state will be furnished.
One of these two factors is certainly the people of Sudan, who after the division of the country into two parts and the loss of more than 75 percent of the oil and fertile agricultural lands in favor of South Sudan, and of course, in the catastrophic and corrupt management of rulers are fed up and have entered the field.
The second factor is the Sudanese military, whose reaction to the popular protests prompted some change. Three months of popular protests ultimately led to the resignation of Al-Bashir last week. Meantime, continued protests against the military council replacing Al-Bashir, notably by ignoring the martial law, caused the resignation of the head of the military council and appointment of a new head for the General Inspectorate of the Sudanese Armed Forces, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan Abdel Rahman. This, however, did not stop the protests and as a result, the new head of the Military Council announced the abolition of the military rule and the release of prisoners as well as formation of a civilian government in cooperation with the opposition. Meanwhile, the resignation of the head of the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service, Salih Ghosh, also occurred in this 48-hour period, and he is called “moderator of change” of the Khartoum regime.
Salih Ghosh is the same person who met with the head of the Mossad on the fringes of the Munich Security Conference in February, and it is not unlikely for him to emerge in the next few days as one of the main figures to manage the transition period with the support of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, and in coordination with the intelligence services of Israel.
The scenario targeted by the influential countries of the region, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who are concerned about their own domestic and regional interests, is a kind of reorganization of power the “Egypt’s Sisi” style; accordingly, given the weakness of opposition parties in Sudan and their relative discredit before the people[1], the Military Council strives to give people the opportunity to consistently give protesters a chance to empty the streets, which in the medium term is expected to erode[2] without political leadership, political figures or civil society providing a transitional government sponsored by wealthy godfathers, including Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
In the next step, the aforementioned godfathers can legitimize the transitional government by injecting billions of dollars into the fragile Sudanese economy, such as Egypt’s early months under General Sisi, in order to pave the way for bringing their own men to power in the course of elections not too far away. Such a person can come from the military and security apparatus, such as Salih Ghosh, the incumbent chairman of Sudan’s mighty intelligence apparatus, or from opposition parties, such as Sadiq al-Mahdi, leader of Al-Ummah who has forged closer ties with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in recent years; At the same time, it must not be forgotten that the new head of the Sudanese military council is commander of the Sudanese forces in the Saudi coalition against Yemen, and naturally has close ties with Riyadh. If this scenario is fulfilled, Al-Bashir’s system will continue without al-Bashir in Sudan.
To understand the importance of economic problems as the main source of protests, it is enough to note that Al-Ummah Leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, one of the country’s most radical parties and one of the relatively weighty politicians in Sudan’s recent decades, noted that in an interview with Sky News: “The Sudanese community faces a number of challenges. Over the past three decades, a situation has emerged that could be described as the devastation of society. The economy collapsed, poverty widened and unemployment increased, and armed conflicts occurred in all the country’s land and infrastructures were destroyed. After the elimination of the current regime, the Sudanese society will realize how critical is the situation because of the wrong policies over the past thirty years. The Sudanese society will face all these challenges and they must prepare themselves for a difficult period.”
The truth is that according to the United Nations in 2016, nearly half of the Sudanese suffered from poverty. Public supply prices in Sudan in the post-disintegration period (2011) increased 60%, and according to official government reports, the average inflation rate in late 2018 was over 70% and bread prices jumped from one Sudanese pound to 3 pounds. The value of Sudan’s currency fell against the US dollar.
It is impossible to manage this catastrophic situation without Saudi and UAE money, and if the possible scenario of the transitional government is met through orchestration of Riyadh, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi, the satisfaction of the regional states, especially Egypt as the big neighbor of Sudan, and of course “the international community “, which these days at best sounds only in the mood of “restraint” will be met; the fact is that if such a scenario does not succeed, Sudan, which is prone to civil war between different parties, can be dangerous for regional security. Let’s not forget that Darfur separatists in the west and border tensions in the south with South Sudan over energy supplies still continue. Of course, about thirty thousand Janjaweed militias are ready for any kind of sacrifice under the command of military leaders in Khartoum; there is a clear confrontation between the high-level commanders of the Sudanese army and the middle officers, which could trigger a crisis if the transitional government process fails.
While the international community and of course the countries of the region are worried about the start of a second wave of the uprisings in the Arab countries (the Arab Spring) and recent developments in Sudan and Algeria and Libya have further aggravated the situation[3] undoubtedly it must be expected that regional powers and the international community, in particular, some of the Security Council’s permanent members, such as France and Russia, will have more secret and open interventions in shaping the transition process in the coming months.
[1] Almost all of the 20 Sudanese parties have been present in Al-Bashir government.
[2] Expectedly, Egyptian civil society is watching closely the developments in Sudan. The activists of the Cairo Square, who spoke on social networks to Sudanese protesters, continued their demands until a government came to power from among the people and did not allow the people’s revolution to confiscate the military, like Egypt. However, in the absence of an intellectual and logistical leadership of the opposition parties and Sudan’s civil society, to advance such demands, on the one hand, and the apparent and hidden efforts of regional powers to steer developments towards their desired stability, to achieve the goal of establishing a government free from “Al-Bashir regime” is far from logic. The situation is also seen in Algeria altogether.
[3] The topic of military experts – Russian intelligence from 2015 – and sent even advisers for prevention and manage the situation in various African countries, including Sudan.
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