In Sudan, the impossible sharing of power between civilians and soldiers

The hopes of the Sudanese to see their country embrace a democratic path through a transition process were dashed by the military coup of October 25. Entrusted to both civilian forces and the military, this process seemed doomed from the outset to inevitable failure.

Stuck for two years in a process of transition to civilian power that has still not seen the light of day, Sudan plunged into the unknown after General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane’s military coup on October 25, and the arrest of civilian members of power, including the Prime Minister, Abdallah Hamdok.

This coup, which comes after months of growing tensions in the country, sounded the death knell for a half-civilian, half-military hybrid transitional power that was responsible for leading the country towards democracy.

Indeed, since the fall, in March 2019, of the autocrat Omar al-Bashir, overthrown after thirty years of reign, the country was ruled by a transitional government, with a civilian Prime Minister, Abdallah Hamdok, and a Council of sovereignty, composed of civilians from the ranks of the protest and the military, chaired by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane. A presidency that was to pass to civilians on November 17.

“Chronicle of an announced failure”

According to experts, the failure of the transition process can be explained in particular by the very nature of this “unnatural” team, originally presented as a saving partnership for the country.

“It is the chronicle of an announced failure, so much the current events in the country do not constitute a surprise, explains to France 24 Rachid Mohamed Ibrahim, professor of political sciences and international relations in Khartoum. The two-headed transition, both civilian and military, carried within it the seeds of failure from the start, since this incoherent partnership was not based on trust, but on mutual mistrust which meant that the two did not considered not as a partner, but rather as a potential enemy “.

In recent months, relations have continued to deteriorate between the two camps, with a Prime Minister not hesitating to criticize, on several occasions, the army and the security services, with their weight in his sights. disproportionate in the economy, especially in vital sectors.

For their part, the military, who were forced by the scale of the protest to include civilians in the transition process, are in no real hurry to lose their grip on power and the economy. They therefore had everything to gain from seeing the civil power fail in its task of rehabilitating the country, one of the poorest in the world. Even if it means complicating the task for him.

Faced with a serious chronic socio-economic crisis inherited from the Omar al-Bashir era, galloping inflation and abysmal debt, the government lost credit due to its austerity policy dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF ) to obtain the cancellation of the country’s debt.

This loss of popularity, on which the army has surfed, is also explained by the impatience caused by the slowness of the transition process and by the delay in the judgment of those responsible for the repression of the protest.

“The transitional government has its share of responsibility in the current events and tensions in the sense that it has not responded to the aspirations of the street, continues Rachid Mohamed Ibrahim. But also in the sense that it is indeed the civilians who have agreed to share power with the military, it is the parties that have allowed the army to enter the political scene fully by signing agreements with it “.

A fractured civilian camp

Member of the Enlarged National Front, a Sudanese opposition party, Abbas Hassan Ahmad, for his part, believes that the Forces for Freedom and Change (FLC), a coalition resulting from the main organization of the protest movement, is paying the price for its partnership with the army. “The FLC confiscated the revolution, and marginalized the other currents which did not want to dialogue with the army, he confided to France 24. The civilians who let the soldiers enter the political sphere, and who negotiated with they betrayed the revolution, its spirit, but also the Sudanese people and martyrs “.

The division within civilian political forces is the other explanation for the failure of the democratic transition. Because if the tensions with the military were growing, those which plagued the civilian camp were just as lethal for the transition process.

“From the start of the process, the civilian camp was divided around the partnership with the military that some considered contrary to the aspirations of the people and the objectives of the revolution, insists Rachid Mohamed Ibrahim. These inconsistencies and misunderstandings have complicated relations with the military and made the job of Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok even more difficult “.

Not to mention, he adds, that “the exercise and sharing of power have provoked new internal divisions and the scattering of the civilian camp, which gradually strayed from its objectives and ended up trapping itself. himself “.

Thus, a day apart, the Minister of Industry, Ibrahim al-Sheikh, appeared last week in the middle of a procession demanding the handing over of power to civilians, before the next day the Minister of Finances, Jibril Ibrahim, appears with the pro-army who had been camping for a few days at the gates of the presidential palace. These two leaders both publicly claim to be from the FLC, itself divided into two factions.

“We have to get back to the spirit of the revolution”

Confusion and divisions which, combined with social discontent and the consequences of the economic crisis, paved the way for a takeover of the army.

This recovery could see General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, who has promised the formation of a new cabinet of “competent people” and “a transition to a civil state and free elections in 2023”, quickly surround himself only of pro-army civilians. And this, to give the illusion of a sharing of power in accordance with the agreements signed between the military and civilians.

“General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane manipulates politicians but also the army, to which he wants to play a political role to confront the civilian parties and so that the military remain in power forever”, warns the opponent Abbas Hassan Ahmad .

And to conclude: “We must return to the spirit of the revolution, that is to say before the signing of the agreements signed with the army, the Sudanese must not be silent, they must descend into the streets of all the cities of the country to oppose this coup and defend democracy, because we cannot allow the army to be an actor in the political process “.