Next month will mark the one-year anniversary of Sudan’s military coup, which toppled the transitional government created in 2019 after the overthrow of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir. Almost a year after Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s military chief, announced what he described as his “corrective measures,” the country is faced not just with a stalemated transition but also a chaotic, paralyzed political landscape.
Security has worsened in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, and elsewhere across the country since the military seized power. Sudan is currently faced with its worst economic crisis in decades, as the price of basic goods and services has increased dramatically due to record-level inflation. But the main challenge the country faces is the prospect of institutional collapse, which will not only derail the democratic transition but risks state failure. Sudan’s state institutions are crumbling under the weight of elite mismanagement and public expectations, and the country’s political actors as well as the international community must grapple with the severity of the ongoing crisis before it spirals further out of control.
When Burhan deposed the transitional government’s civilian members, including former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, it was believed that he would move quickly to replace them, if even with more pliant officials. But those expectations never materialized. Burhan stated after the October 2021 coup that he would appoint a civilian government with a limited mandate to oversee the remaining transitional period, with a view to holding elections in 2022. But those steps were delayed because of the United Nations-sponsored mediation process between the Sudanese military and the civilian officials ousted by the army.
As Sudan’s political crisis grows more complex, the international community must think beyond the status quo approach, as the situation has evolved beyond a dispute over the democratic transition.
As a result, while some Cabinet positions, like the Finance and Interior Ministries, are occupied, the majority of the leading offices are still vacant, including that of the prime minister, threatening the government’s stability as well as its ability to deliver on its basic responsibilities.
Equally alarming is the paralysis of the judicial branch. The Constitutional Court, the country’s highest legal authority, has not functioned since 2019, when the military suspended it, and the Constitution, to remove Bashir from power. In addition, the Judiciary Authority remains without a chief. Sudan’s state functions will remain crippled without restoring an effective judicial system.
Meanwhile, the economy is also teetering on the brink of disaster. Inflation is rising, and the decision by Khartoum’s international partners to suspend aid after last year’s coup has worsened conditions without changing the regime’s behavior. As a result, the government is struggling to fund its obligations under the Juba Peace Agreement toward the rebel groups that joined it in signing the deal in 2020. Jibril Ibrahim, a former rebel leader and the current finance minister, plans to offset the funding deficit through taxation and gold revenues. Recent reports from the Central Bank of Sudan indicate some progress, as gold exports have increased, but it is still too early to tell if those measures will offset the loss of revenues from international donors.
The political arena offers few promising signs, either. Since last year, many attempts have been made to broker a new deal between the military and the Forces of Freedom and Change, or FFC, the civilian opposition group created during the 2018-2019 protests. The main initiative is led by the U.N. Mission in Khartoum, or UNTIMAS, which launched an indirect dialogue between the FFC’s two mainfactions and the Sudanese military. But those efforts have met with little success because of disagreements among the FFC factions. The split within the FFC occurred before the October 2021 coup due to power-sharing disputes between the FFC’s main political parties and the rebel groups. But these disagreements further deepened when the rebel groups supported the military takeover.
In early July, Burhan announced in a televised statement that the military would withdraw from politics, while promising that he would dissolve the sovereign council he heads after a new transitional government is formed. But the feasibility of Burhan’s plans depends considerably on the civilian parties’ ability to agree on the terms and conditions of such a transitional government, which seem hard to reach at this time.
Another mediation initiative is being led by some of Khartoum’s major international partners, including the U.S., the U.K., Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This initiative has held several meetings with the military and FFC factions to produce a political roadmap, but it too has been mostly fruitless.
Amid ongoing negotiations and a governmental vacuum, protests organized by the Resistance Committee—a collective of informal, grassroots networks of citizens—calling for the restoration of civilian rule have continued around Khartoum. These younger groups have since increased their initial demands, calling for what is now known as the “three no’s” that rule out negotiations, partnerships and agreements that legitimize the coup plotters. The Resistance Committee remains the most prominent force behind the street demonstrations, but its demands make it difficult to reach a transitional agreement with other stakeholders given the reality of the military’s necessary participation in reaching any deal.
One cohort of stakeholders that has seen its prominence increase lately is the traditional institutions—namely, tribal chiefs and Sufi sects—that were sidelined by more modern political forces like the FFC and Resistance Committee after Bashir’s ouster. Having since reorganized and restrategized, they have launched a national public initiative—Nida Ahl Al-Sudan, or the Call of Sudan’s People—to end the political crisis. Their main objectives are to establish a roadmap for elections and to facilitate a consensual transitional government to manage them.
In addition to the institutional paralysis and deepening sociopolitical tensions in Sudan, cross-border security is another significant area of concern, given its regional ramifications. Border conflicts have resurfaced, with clashes between Ethiopian Amhara militias and Sudanese forces along the country’s eastern border, which has become more securitized since the eruption of the Tigray war in northern Ethiopia. And even within Sudan’s security establishment, tensions are rising between the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, paramilitary composed primarily of Janjaweed militias that fought on behalf of Khartoum during the War in Darfur. While the two factions have long had a range of differences in the past, recent developments suggest that the gap has widened and intensified.
The most recent flashpoint occurred last week when the RSF leader, Gen. Mohamed Hemedti, announced his support for an interim constitutional draft proposed by the FFC’s legal bureau. That directly contradicted Burhan’s position to support only initiatives that include all political stakeholders in Sudan, and not only the FFC. Furthermore, when Burhan left the country to attend Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, he temporarily delegated his government and military authorities to Gen. Shames Eldin Al-Kabashi instead of Hemedti, despite the latter being the nominal second-in-command of the ruling sovereign council.
As Sudan’s political crisis grows more complex, the international community must think beyond the status quo approach, as the situation has evolved beyond a dispute over the transition between the military and the FFC. The Sudanese state itself faces a crisis in which the prospect of state failure is a real possibility. A new approach should be broadened to include younger revolutionaries who led the uprising against Bashir as well as the alienated traditional institutions. The current bilateral process will only deepen the political polarization and tensions among Sudan’s stakeholders. Washington ought to move quickly to work with its local and regional partners to prevent another stateless country in the Horn of Africa, which could also threaten U.S. interests in the region.
Finally, Sudan’s various stakeholders must recognize the risks of a failed state and its wider implications. A political agreement must lay out the main objectives of the transitional period until elections are held. No single political party can claim popular legitimacy without elections that translate the popular will. Bearing that in mind, inclusion is the way to save not only the civilian transition but also the Sudanese state.