The Sudanese Revolution and the Horizons of Democratisation

المؤلفون

  • المؤلف

  • Eltigani Abdelgadir Hamid

الكلمات المفتاحية:

Sudanese Revolution، Democratic Transition، Sudan، Protest

الملخص

This study poses several questions: Did the fall of the Salvation regime in Sudan result from an initiative from within the regime, an opposition coalition, or both? How influential was the external factor in the overthrow of the regime and the period of transition to democracy? Will the post-Salvation regime order stay the course of democratisation, or will it revert to an authoritarian system? The study concludes that the likely agreed-upon aim of world powers and their authoritarian partners in the region is to steer Sudan toward a hybrid system that keeps members of the old regime in control of the key positions of power while preserving a minimum degree of democracy. In this framework, the ruling civilian-military alliance will receive support from the US, the EU, and their regional allies, which will enable it to dismantle the institutions of the former regime, assimilate a number of militant movements in the political process, and gradually integrate into the international security and economic orders. Meanwhile, on the domestic front, the transitional government will encounter formidable challenges of a nature that might not only cause the transitional process to fall apart but also precipitate the collapse of the Sudanese state.

المراجع

  1. A label that refers to the political regime led by the former president Omar al-Bashir through the National Congress Party, which ruled Sudan for thirty years.
  2. In January 2019, a group of Sudanese forces launched a declaration titled ‘Forces of Freedom and Change Declaration’ that included four main forces: the ‘Sudanese Professionals Association’, the ‘National Consensus’, the ‘Sudan Development Call Association [Nidaa]’, and the ‘Unionist Opposition Alliance’. The declaration demanded the overthrow of former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir (1989-2019), the achievement of a comprehensive and just peace, and the formation of a transitional government for a four-year period.
  3. Alfred Stepan, ‘Paths toward Redemocratization,’ in: Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter & Laurence Whitehead (eds.), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives (Baltimore/ London: John Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 65.
  4. Samuel Huntington (1927-2008) published a book on the third wave of democracy in 1991, expanding on his lecture at the University of Oklahoma in 1989. The university published the text two years later; see: Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twenties Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).
  5. The research was published as part of the project titled ‘Transition from Authoritarian to Democratic Regimes’, concerned with what came to be known as the ‘Third Wave of Democracy’. Many professors participated in this project in 1979, led by Guillermo A. O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead. The works of the project was published in four volumes in 1986.
  6. Howard J. Wiarda, ‘Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, and Comparative Politics: Transitology and the Need for New Theory,’ World Affairs , vol. 164, no. 4 (Spring 2002), pp. 149-156.
  7. Jakub Zielinski, ‘Transitions from Authoritarian Rule and the Problem of Violence’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution , vol. 43, no. 2 (April 1999), p. 214.
  8. ‘al-Jaysh yuʿlin iqtilāʿ’ Niẓām al-Bashīr wa iḥtijāzihi fī makān āmin,’ France24 , 11/4/2019, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3e5eVJf.
  9. ‘Ibn ʿAwf yatanāzal wa-l-Burhān khalafan lah’, SUNA , 12/4/2019, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3y8ixB8
  10. The head of the security apparatus, General Salah Gosh, announced these points in an interview with editors-in-chief of daily newspapers on 22 February 2019. President al-Bashir’s speech included some of these points, excluding the one related to his decision not run for presidency in the next elections. See: ‘Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Bilāl: Qarārāt al-Raʾīs!’ Bajnews , 24/2/2019, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/36fq3Pn
  11. ‘Nāʾib raʾīs jihāz al-amn al-sābiq yakshif li-awwal marra fī ḥiwār maʿuh al-tafāṣīl al-Kāmila li-suqūṭ al-Bashīr wa dawr gūsh wa bin ʿawf wa ḥamedtī wa khuṭat qatl al-mutaẓāhirīn’, Tag Press , 5/10/2020, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3y87UhL
  12. Many sources indicate that former National Security Advisor Salah Gosh was in contact with some opposition leaders to attempt to win their support in the weeks that preceded the isolation of President al-Bashir, particularly with Sadiq al-Mahdi, head of the National Umma Party; Omar al-Dugair, head of the Sudanese Congress Party; and other members of the Baath party. See: ‘Reuters takshif kawālīs Tawarruṭ al-imārāt fī al-iṭāḥa bi- ʾUmar al-Bashīr’, Al Jazeera , 3/7/2019, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3JbYPYA
  13. The speech was televised on Sudan TV and Al Jazeera Mubasher and streamed on various social media platforms. To access the full text of the speech, see: ‘Naṣṣ al-bayān al-awwal… hāthā mā aʿlanahu al-jaysh al-sūdānī’, Al Jazeera , 11/4/2019, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3q1i0wF
  14. Among the characteristics of this role is the former’s cooperation with General al-Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo in the Yemen war, as well as the continued support presented by these states to the Military Council to strengthen its position among other political forces. For more on this topic, see the report prepared and published by ‘The Project on Middle East Political Science’ at the Middle East Institute in the George Washington University: Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, ‘The Great Game of the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Sudan’, Middle East Political Science , accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3tSBYLl.
  15. Considering the confidential nature of such roles, we have no choice but to rely on two corroborating reports. The first, published by Foreign Policy one month after the fall of the Bashir regime and written by French journalist Jérôme Tubiana, a specialist in African affairs, indicated the participation of a Sudanese army division in the Saudi-led coalition in the Yemen war. Leading the division, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Ahmad Dagalo (Hemeti) met with Saudi and Emirati officials and agreed on arrangements for the post-al-Bashir period. The Saudi-UAE side became convinced that the two men (Burhan and Hemeti) met the conditions of Saudi Arabia and the UAE for new leaders without ties with Iran, Qatar, or the Muslim Brotherhood; see: Jérôme Tubiana, ‘The Man Who Terrorized Darfur Is Leading Sudan’s Supposed Transition’, Foreign Policy (May 2019), accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3KEbofB. The second report was published by Reuters on 3 July 2019 (three months after the fall of the regime) and was prepared by three reporters based on interviews conducted with more than ten insider sources. The report stated that President al-Bashir reached an understanding with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed whereby the former dispenses with the Islamists and deploys military forces to support Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the Yemen war, in exchange of financial support from the UAE to Sudan. However, president al-Bashir did not fulfil all his pledges, so the UAE cut off its fuel supply to Sudan in December 2018 as a manifestation of its dissatisfaction, exacerbating the economic crisis that eventually led to the fall of the regime; see: Khalid Abdelaziz, Michael Georgy & Maha El Dahan, ‘Abandoned by the UAE, Sudan’s Bashir Was Destined to Fall’, Reuters , 3/7/2019, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://reut.rs/36gQXXq.
  16. Among the attendees of those meetings were Mariam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi (National Umma Party), Khalid Omar Yousef (Sudanese Congress Party), and Yasir Arman (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – northern sector); see: ‘ Thawrat dīsambir: al-siyāqāt wa-l-fāʿilūn wa taḥaddiyāt al-intiqāl al-dīmuqrāṭī fī al-sūdān’ , Reports , ACRPS, 2/6/2020, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/35TXtn1
  17. The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) is the most prominent component of the Forces of Freedom and Change. Established in 2018, it began its activity with a study on wages and submitted a memorandum about it to the government of President al-Bashir. It included seven professional bodies at the time: Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors, Democratic Lawyers Association, Sudanese Engineers Association, Sudanese Journalists Network, Teachers’ Committee, Association of Democratic Veterinarians, and Central Pharmacists Committee. It later began to appear in the media a week after the spontaneous outbreak of the popular revolution on 13 December 2018 alongside many other organisations and professional bodies, issuing a declaration on behalf of the Forces of Freedom and Change, the entity that became the platform for popular command ever since.
  18. In reference to those who conform with the policy of the UAE: Khalid Omar Yousef, Mariam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, Yasir Arman, and others.
  19. ‘al-wathīqa al-dustūriyya lil-fatra al-intiqāliyya bi-jumhūriyyat al-sūdān’, Conflict Sensitivity Unit , 19/2/2021, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/35NCBOr
  20. The seven main parties participating in the government are: National Umma Party, Sudanese Congress Party, Sudanese Communist Party, Democratic Unionist Party, Sudanese Baath Party, Unionist Democratic Nasserist Party, and Socialist Republican Party.
  21. ‘iʿlān al-ḥurriyya wa-l-taghyīr’, Facebook , 1/1/2019, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3q0Rrb6
  22. ‘intaṣarnā wa nuṭālib bi-ḥaqq shuhadāʾina: kalimat muḥammad nājī al-aṣam baʿd tawqīʿ al-ittifāq al-tārīkhī fī al-sūdān’, YouTube , 17/8/2019, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3CDvow5; Ismael Mohammed Ali, ‘Siddīq Yūsif: raʾīs al-wuzarāʾ al-sūdānī laysa shuyūʿiyyan’, Independent Arabia , 20/12/2019, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3KzhMok
  23. An interview Ali with Siddiq Yousef, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, conducted by Ismael Mohammed: Independent Arabia , 20 December 2019.
  24. ‘Shāhid… bayān raʾīs al-majlis al-ʿaskarī al-farīq ʿabd al-fattāḥ al-burhān’, YouTube , 16/5/2019, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3pVRkh1.
  25. Abd al-Hameed Awad, ‘al-sūdān: tashkīl lajna li-izālat wa tafkīk niẓām al-bashīr,’ al-Araby al-Jadid , 10/12/2019, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3MHity5
  26. ‘Badʾ muḥākamat al-raʾīs al-sūdānī al-sābiq ʿUmar al-bashīr bi-tuhmat al-inqilāb ʿalā al-ḥukūma al-muntakhaba’, Lusail News , 21/7/2020, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3t7iZh2
  27. The Sudanese Communist Party maintains that the transitional government has capitulated to global capitalism which seeks to dominate the Sudanese economy, and that it is moving in the direction of dependency on the West in compliance with all conditions instead of relying on Sudanese resources and internal reforms; see: al-Haj Abdalla Ahmad (Interviewer), ‘muqābala maʿ ṣiddīq Kablū, ʿuḍw al-lajna al-markaziyya’, al-Midan (3797),
  28. Bahram Abd al-Moniem, ‘al-ḥizb al-shuyūʿī al-sūdānī yuʿlin insiḥābah min al-iʾtilāf al-ḥākim’, Anadolu Agency , 7/11/2020, accessed on 20/4/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3OpgAXt
  29. ‘Bayān al-lajna al-markaziyya lil-ḥizb al-shuyūʿī’, al-Midan , 8/11/2020.
  30. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York: Harper & Row Publisher, 1942), p. 243.
  31. The Sudan Revolutionary Front signed on behalf of the armed opposition, comprising four political movements and five armed movements: the Justice and Equality Movement, the Sudan Liberation Forces, the Sudan Liberation Army, the Transitional Council of the Sudan Liberation Army, and the Sudanese Alliance. Those who did not sign include the Popular Movement – North (led by Abdulaziz al-Helu) and the Sudan Liberation Army Movement (led by Abd al-Wahid Mohammed Nour). For more on the main provisions of the agreement, see: Asharq Al-Awsat , 15286, 4/10/2020.
  32. For more details on the relationship between al-Burhan and Israel, see: Abd al-Baqi al-Zafir, ‘Riḥlat al-baḥth ʿam al-taṭbīʿ maʿ isrāʾīl… limādha ṭalab al-burhān an yakhlud ilā al-nawm ʿind al-ʿawda min abū ẓabī?’ Al Jazeera , 25/9/2020, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3CFeMnZ. al- Burhan later clarified that the decision to normalise with Israel came after long discussions with political and social powers that did not oppose this step, and that the partners in the transitional government are also partners in ending hostility with Israel. For an example of the objection of the Arab Communist Baath Party that is taking part in the transitional government, see: Abd al-Hameed Awad, ‘Al-sūdān: ḥizb sūdānī sharīk fī al-ḥukm yuṭālib bi-muḥākamat al-mushārikī fī al-taṭbīʿ’, al-Araby al-Jadid , 25/10/2020, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/34E9lZHl. Sources indicate that the United States, during the visit of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (2018-2021) to Khartoum, imposed normalisation of relations between Khartoum and Tel Aviv as a condition to remove Sudan from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism; see: ‘Pompeo yujrī ittiṣālan maʿ ḥamdūk bi-shaʾn izālat ism al-sūdān min qāʾimat al-duwal al-rāʿiya lil-irhāb’, CNN Arabic , 22/10/2020, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://cnn.it/3i4ryCS. The Israeli Minister of Intelligence, Elie Cohen, and his delegation visited Khartoum a month after the Sudanese government agreed to normalise its relations with Israel on 26 January 2020. This date marked the siege of Khartoum by Ansar al-Mahdi in 1885. It is worth noting that the official media in Sudan made no mention of this visit. The Israeli minister mentioned that the delegation met with the president of the Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Defence Minister, Yassin Ibrahim, to discuss diplomatic, security, and economic issues. It is also worth mentioning that Sudan signed the Abraham Accords on 6 January 2021.
  33. Here, we should make note of the regional factor in the Sudanese case. What is conspicuous is that the central military command that contributed to overthrowing al-Bashir’s government (i.e., Ibn Auf, Hemeti, and al-Burhan) had direct connections with the Saudi-UAE-Egyptian camp; these leaders even participated directly in the Saudi-Yemeni war by deploying Sudanese Army units or the Rapid Support Forces to the battleground.
  34. ‘Fī khiḍamm al-nizāʿ bayn al-sūdān wa Athyūbya wa Azmat sadd al-Nahḍa… ittifāqiyya jadīda tuwaṭṭid al-taʿāwun al-ʿaskarī bayn al-kharṭūm wa-l-qāhira’, Al Jazeera , 3/3/2021, accessed on 20/4/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3xFF60B
  35. ‘Tastamirr li-khamsat ayyām… inṭilāq munāwarat ‘ḥumāt al-nīl’ al-ʿaskariyya bayn al-jayshayn al-sūdānī wa-l-miṣrī’, Al Jazeera , 26/5/2021, accessed on 20/4/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3Mm7yJ9
  36. Abdulaziz Hussein al-Sawi, Dirāsa Naẓariyya wa Taṭbīqiyya fī Tārīkh al-Sūdān al-Ḥadīth (Khartoum: Dar Azza for Publishing, 2016), p. 7.
  37. Kamal al-Juzouli, al-Shuyūʿiyūn al-Sūdāniyūn wa-l-Dīmuqrāṭiyya (Khartoum: Dar Azza for Publishing, 2003), pp. 79-80. For more on the concept of democracy in Marxist thought, see: Crawford Brough Macpherson, The Real World of Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1966), pp. 13-17.
  38. ‘Kānī mānī al-Imām.. al-ṣādīq al-mahdī yuṭālib bi-iʿṭāʾ ḥizbih aghlabiyyat ikhtiyārāt wulāt al-wilāyāt… mathā qāl wa limāthā yaʿtaqid thālik? al-ijāba fī al-vīdyu.. #vīdyu_būst #zūl_būst’, Facebook , 13/1/2020, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3J9R6KM
  39. In a public speech, Mr Mubarak al-Fadil, leader of the Umma Party, said that a military commander in the Sovereignty Council informed him of an offer proposed by the Forces of Freedom and Change to extend the transitional period by ten years.
  40. ‘Dawrat al-lajna al-markaziyya yanāyir 2021 – al-waraqa al-siyāsiyya (4/5)’, Sudanese Communist Party Facebook , 27/2/2021, accessed on 20/4/2022, at: https://bit.ly/37A7xCp
  41. ‘Ittifāq Jūba lil-salām fī al-Sūdān: Taḥaddiyātuh wa Furaṣ Najāḥih’, Situation Assessment , ACRPS, 10 December 2020, p. 3, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3I7e8k6
  42. ‘Ittifāq Siyāsī bayn al-ḥizb al-Shuyūʿī wa-l-ḥaraka al-Shaʿbiyya – al-ḥelu’, Sudanipost , 6/9/2020, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3t2O3hL
  43. Yassir Mahjoub al-Hussein, ‘al-Shuyūʿī’ al-Sūdānī… al-ḥākim al-khafiy al-mutalawin’, al-Sharq , 18/1/2020, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3CHmu0D; Mohammed Ali.
  44. The press covered the mission’s visit, by the President of the EU delegation Robert Van Den Dool and the EU ambassadors to Sudan, to the Nimeiri High Military Academy in Omdurman. Van Den Dool said that ‘we are very interested to understand the level and content of the advanced education offered to students in this central institution, as well as the ongoing educational transformation that will cover human rights and international and humanitarian law that will lead to building a new, different generation of professionals in Sudan and the region’. He further insisted that the EU remains a strong supporter of the Sudanese people’s transition to a real democracy [which could become] a beacon of safety and stability in the region. See: ‘Al-safīr Robert Van: Amn al-sūdān muhimm jiddan bil-nisba lil-ittiḥād al-ūrūbbī’, SUNA , 3/3/2021, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/35QVFuU
  45. This is according to Major General Ezz al-Din Othman Taha, director of the Academy, while welcoming the EU ambassadors and insisting that the Academy is in the process of developing an ‘educational system’ for the military and civilian students in the next stage that ensures fighting terrorism and human trafficking, managing the borders, combatting smuggling, conflict resolution, and peace-keeping and peace-building; see: Ibid.
  46. It is worth mentioning that this resolution followed a speech by Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok on 27 January 2020 addressing the UN Secretary-General, in which he requested the UN pursue a Security Council mandate to establish a process to support peace in accordance with Chapter VI of the UN Charter (viz. pacific settlement of disputes); see: ‘Al-Sūdān yaṭlub min majlis al-amn inshāʾ biʿtha khāṣa li-daʿm al-salām’, Anadolu Agency , 9/2/2020, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3tWJi8V
  47. ‘Majlis al-amn yuqarrir inshāʾ biʿtha umamiyya jadīda fī al- sūdān’, UN News , 4/6/2020, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3i4ujEe
  48. For more on UNITAMS, see: https://bit.ly/3GMroNZ
  49. To speak of the military-security group’s role in effecting change is not to diminish the role of the massive popular movement, which witnessed the participation of social sectors and political entities including the youth, professionals, and political parties. For more on this popular movement, see: ‘Thawrat dīsambir: al-siyāqāt wa-l-fāʿilūn’, pp. 1-4.
  50. It is worth mentioning that Gosh was abruptly discharged from the apparatus in 2009 and appointed a consultant for security affairs. He was discharged again in 2011 and arrested in 2012 on charges of participation in a coup attempt. He was released by presidential pardon in 2013 (after seven months in prison), then reinstated in the apparatus without warning on 11 February 2018.
  51. Eric Solsten & Sandra W. Meditz (eds.), Spain: A Country Study (Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1988).
  52. Azmi Bishara, ‘Mulāḥaẓāt ʿan al-ʿĀmil al-Khārijī fī al-Intiqāl al-Dīmuqrāṭī’, Siyasat Arabiya , no. 38 (May 2019), pp. 7-24.
  53. Alfred Stepan & Juan J. Linz, ‘Democratization Theory and the “Arab Spring”’, Journal of Democracy , vol. 24, no. 2 (April 2013), p. 20.
  54. ‘Thawrat dīsambir: al-siyāqāt wa-l-fāʿilūn’.
  55. ‘al-Sūdān #sūnā/ khiṭāb dawlat raʾīs majlis al-wuzarāʾ dr. ʿaballah ḥamdūk lil-umma al- sūdāniyya’, Youtube , 15/6/2021, accessed on 13/3/2022, at: https://bit.ly/3tS2IvB
  56. Omar G. Encarnacion, ‘Spain After Franco: Lessons in Democratization’, World Policy Journal , vol. 18, no. 4 (Winter 2001/2002), p. 43.
Cover of العدد 11, Almuntaqa

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2022-05-01

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