Sudan Crisis: Between coup and drafted constitutional document
by Amgad Fareid Eltayeb
Former Political Advisor to UNITAMS, and Former Assistant Chief of Staff to Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. Accessible at: [email protected]
The dawn of October 25, 2021, was a turning point in Sudan. The Chairman of the Sovereignty Council and the Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Army, General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, staged a military coup and froze the provisions of the constitutional declaration and arrested Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, along with a number of other prominent ministers and politicians.
This coup practically terminated the civil democratic transition launched following the triumph of the December Revolution in April 2019. This process effectively began in August 2019 after an agreement between civil political forces and the military component to share power under the Constitutional Document. The agreement stipulated the transfer of the chairmanship of the Sovereignty Council – a collegial head of state body – from the military to the civilian in the last third of the transitional period. Perhaps the approach to this milestone was the main reason that prompted the military to stage a military coup and seize power. The subsequent November 21 agreement that Prime Minister Hamdok made unilaterally with the military did not succeed in restoring the transitional path, which led to his resignation in early January 2022, bringing the country into the ongoing coup crisis so far.
The coup and its consequences were a manifestation of a deeper political crisis. The December 2018 revolution has not only succeeded in bringing down one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. It also opened the door widely to direct political participation outside the classical political class triangle of the Army, Political Parties, and the Market (the business community). This was supposed to be a positive political development but the structural deformities of the Sudanese political practices did not allow so.
The legitimacy of the Sudanese classical political class has been continuously challenged since the independence of Sudan. The civil wars; in the South, East Sudan, Darfur, and the Two Areas, the numerous coups against the rule of the political parties during the democratic eras, and the popular revolutions that ousted military governments three times in less than 60 years, all stand witness to the growing remonstration among large segments of the Sudanese against the legitimacy of the political class controlling the country. The secession of South Sudan was a significant moment in which this legitimacy was shaken when nearly a third of the country chose to go its separate path. This depleted legitimacy significantly affected the ability of the political class to run the country in a stable way.
The political class had its last chance to keep its influence in the 2019 deal. The power-sharing deal between the political elites and the military had reasonable popular acceptance and support. However, that opportunity was misused by the military’s growing greed to monopolize power and the civilian’s lack of awareness of the nature of the change that occurred in the political landscape. Each side of the elite political repeated the old political manipulation practices without paying attention to the fact that the transitional period is a period of reform and not of political rule and control.
The political parties resorted to populist discourse to win over the new grass root forces instead of organizing and representing them organically in decision-making structures. They treated them as a natural reward for the struggle against the NCP, rather than constituents that want actual representation. Similarly, the signatories to the Juba Peace Agreement used the text of the agreement not to achieve peace, but to harvest political influence for their own organizations rather than their cause. The business community switched alliances and created alliances with the new circles influential in political decision-making. The military component resorted to taking advantage of this gradual divergence to restore and rebuild its political influence and renege on the commitments of the 2019 deal, paving the way to carry out the October 25 coup.
Regardless of its direct cause, which is the approaching rotation of the chairmanship of the Sovereign Council from the military to the civilian, the coup was one of the attempts of the political class to restore and maintain power, a classical Sudanese political practice. The November 21 agreement and the secret and public communications between the parties to the coup and the parties opposing it also reflect the political class’s attempt to survive without a radical change in their practice.
The putschists realized the problem of their questionable legitimacy. Thus, they have established alliances that allow them to claim to represent a broad coalition. They gathered entities and leaders who sought to consolidate the illusion of their broad power base, such as the signatories to the JPA.
The extensive use of reverse racist rhetoric and false claims of representation of the parties by the many SRF groups signatory of the JPA who sided with the coup were nothing but political attempts aimed at avoiding confronting the reality of the lack of legitimacy of representation.
For example, the Darfur region governor, and Sudan Liberation Movement leader Minni Minawi, resides permanently in Khartoum, immersed in national issues, with occasional visits to the region he is supposed to be ruling. The Minister of Finance and the leader of the other pro-coup Darfuri movement (The Justice and Equality Movement), Gibril Ibrahim, has not even visited the Darfur region since the signing of the peace agreement and his return to Sudan. Those leaders –and others who are supporting the coup- clearly realize that they lack the representative legitimacy of the bases in their areas of origin, and therefore resort to the ethnic overbidding rhetoric in the face of their opponents and critics.
They are also aware that such rhetoric will not work for long in the context of democratic transformation, and that is why they supported the coup, which provides them with the space to continue using it to justify the coup. It is a win-win situation for both of those leaders who need a political slogan and the military who needs to mask the true nature of their coup.
Another manoeuvre of the political class to survive was the recent draft constitutional document produced by the steering committee of the Sudanese Bar Association. The draft is being marketed as a window for a political solution. This solution embodies the necessity of the unity of the civilian actors as an entry point to the solution. There is a growing enthusiasm for this among some political forces as well as the international community. Unfortunately, that is short-sighted and ill-advised. The draft does not answer the political issues at the heart of the civilian-military rift, nor does provide a roadmap toward paving the way for addressing them. The constitutional document of 2019 remained unimplemented and undermined until its demise with the 25 October 2021 coup. Even the best constitutional text needs commitment, implementation and adherence to be effective. Sudan is no exception. The constitution cannot guard the stubbornness of those who want to follow it when their interests and alliances change, which is what happened during the recent transitional period. At the moment, although the fundamental differences between the parties have narrowed, the political and general polarization between them remains increasingly sharp. Therefore, jumping to discuss a detailed fully scripted constitutional document without first addressing the core political disagreement might not be helpful. In fact, it may lead to further polarization around the disagreements over the details contained or not contained in the document. In such a contested political environment, reaching a solution needs to be gradual and based on structured political negotiations that allow a political give-and-take. The approach now appears to be putting the cart before the horse which is unlikely to yield the outcome desired i.e. reaching a lasting and viable political solution to restore the transition and send the military back to barracks.
The international community particularly the trilateral mechanism should not jump to support this effort without considering its shortcomings. Reaching a lasting solution will need a structured political process, inclusive of the key actors, especially those who are currently not engaging in the political process, not only the largest number of any actors. The process should go in a step-ladder approach from what is simple to what is more complex in terms of the divergent position of the parties. This should be preceded by confirming an agreement on the issues on which there is consensus. A gradual and incremental approach to the political process will contribute to reducing polarization and creating collective ownership of its outcomes by all stakeholders. This process should aim principally at agreeing on the general doctrines that run the state (The Supra-constitutional principles such as ensuring the achievement of justice, equality, rule of law, unification, unification, modernization and reform of the military establishment, ensuring the implementation and completion of peace…etc) and the basic objectives of the transitional process, and how to manage, monitor and ensure its stability. The transition process itself requires prior agreement between all parties on its roadmap and structure, and it must be linked to a realistic timetable. This timetable should include a gradual transition to electoral legitimacy of state institutions (especially the legislative institution) to address and resolve questions that require a larger consensus that goes beyond consensus among political forces. This includes preparing for the permanent constitution, legal reforms, and issues of subordinating the military institution to civilian leadership, in addition to monitoring the performance of the executive body. The gradual partial elections of the state structures during the transitional period will train people on democratic practices and help the political parties to implement internal political reforms, which are another necessity to achieve during the transitional period.
Undoubtedly, addressing the current coup situation is the starting point of any long-lasting solution in Sudan. However, it is inevitable for the Sudanese political class to address the structural deformities in their political practice. The promise of the December revolution should not only be stability and peace but also to create a representative political system that runs a national state in which the authority of the government is respected as a just social servant for all.