The myth of short transition in Sudan

by Amgad Fareid Eltayeb

Talking about a short transitional period, which is resurfacing strongly these days, is simply submission to the blackmail of the military who carried out the coup, and behind them are the remnants of the deep state of the Islamists who want to benefit from their remaining influence on the state apparatus as quickly as possible. And the justification of the need for electoral legitimacy is a false justification. For electoral legitimacy to be solid and real, it must be gradual and include all governance structures, starting from the grassroots levels and graduating to higher: local, state/regional and legislative structures, and this is what should happen during the time frame of the transitional period.

Justifying this by the limited tasks of the transitional period is self-defeating. The necessity of these tasks does not mean at all rushing to complete them in a hurry. Rather, they are tasks of reform, which are necessary to be accomplished within the appropriate time frame for their good completion that ensures the rehabilitation of the situation in Sudan for a solid and sustainable democracy.

These tasks are not limited to economic reform, debt forgiveness, revitalizing the economy, reforming the civil service, reforming the justice system, carrying out basic reforms in service systems, including health and education, and conducting a population, economic and development census that ensures the ability of the state apparatus to plan properly, and the start of a real reform process in the security and military sector that unites the armies and brings this institution to a stage that ensures that coups are not repeated in Sudan, and other tasks that all require time, social discussion and broad consensus in order to pave the way for a stable democracy, but these tasks also goes beyond this to the completion and real translation of peace on the ground, completing the tasks of returning the displaced and refugees and rehabilitating the means for their political participation, without which the processes of constitution-making or discussing the root causes of war and marginalization, would be just a repetition of elite exercises and discussions that will serve nothing but to maintain the influence of the political class in closing itself on itself. Not to mention the necessity to dismantle the joints of the deep state in a just, real and deep manner that ensures the rehabilitation of the state apparatus away from the political influence and economic influence of the ousted National Congress Party regime.

The circles of the international community that push in this direction (a short transitional period and then elections), especially the American circles of influence, are not very concerned with stability in Sudan, as much as they are interested in reaching any agreement whatsoever, even if it paves the way for another coup or even Civil war in Sudan, considering that this is the norm in Africa. Bad and immature agreements do not produce sustainable solutions (neither in Sudan nor in Ethiopia, by the way, but that’s another story). This simple lesson that the West did not learn in its pressure for urgent elections and short transitional periods, from the lessons that took place in Egypt or in Tunisia, nor did it learn from its history itself. The carrying out of elections in the presence of political polarization and sharp constitutional and legal differences over the principles of the social contract for the establishment of the state – any state – and rules of governance, cannot produce good results at all.

For example, the elections of 1860 in America itself led to the American Civil War, because of the disagreement about the inclusivity of (these facts) on which the American Declaration of Independence was based; political equality, natural rights and the principle of people’s sovereignty… I think that what we want in the process of political transition in Sudan is to agree on our set of facts for establishing our state in an agreed-upon way that guarantees its stability and fortification in the face of political fluctuations and differences.

The US pressure for urgent elections in Sudan has been in place since 2019. I remember that the position of the US Chargé d’Affairs at the time (Stephen Koutsis) in the first official meeting of a delegation from the Forces of Freedom and Change with a group of foreign ambassadors on April 14, 2019, was to reject the idea of a transitional period in the first place, and he kept talking in the meeting about holding elections within a period of six months.

The transitional period is not just a limited time frame that must only be passed through, but it is a period necessary to accomplish necessary tasks that help in the re-establishment of the Sudanese state. Of course, this must happen through the widest possible consensus among the democratic forces that desire a future of real stability in Sudan.

But the political forces that are now subject to the pressures of the international community and the blackmailing of the putschist military, and imagine that they may be able to achieve electoral gains in urgent elections, and ignore the influence of the deep state of the Islamists, which they have been complaining about now, they are shooting at their feet, because even if they achieved some electoral gains here and there, they will not be able to maintain it without the necessary reforms of the state apparatus to safeguard against another coup, and the international community – which does not hide that it wants to get rid of the headache of transition in Sudan in any way and as quickly as possible – will not be able to protect these gains, as happened on October 25 last.

Ending this coup should be the starting point for ending all coups, civil wars, and political instability in Sudan, and closing their page forever, not to however tick the formality boxes.