Wake-up call: Controlled Vicious Circle
It seems that a vicious circle was created on the 11th of April 2019 when the army top brass, which was the security committee of the ousted Salvation regime, took over. A vicious circle of unstable hybrid transitional governance followed by a military coup. The first appearance of it was on October 25th 2021 when General Burhan dissolved the cabinet and revoked almost all important articles of the signed Constitutional Document of April 17, 2019.
The second emergence of the vicious circle will be after few months from the date of formation of a transitional government, as agreed upon on the 11th of April 2023.
What is alarming is the selection of emotional dates as targets of very serious and pragmatic tasks in a turbulent political atmosphere.
Emotional because 1st April was the climax of the street rallies on 2019, 6 April date of the historic sit-in and 11 April date of the downfall of the Salvation regime.
It seems to me that the framework brokers and the Forces of Freedom and Change – Central Council (FFC-1) are either kidding or exhausted by the painstaking fruitless meetings with the other bloc.
The selected three dates are intended to appease some of the die-hard revolutionaries who are more wise and well coached.
Selection of dates of vital changes should only be based as critical analysis, pragmatic evaluation and wise assessment of the expected outcome of the change.
From the three emotionally set dates it seems to me that the FFC-1 is speedily targeting a share in the transitional government. The two mechanisms are foreseeing the inevitable failure of a transitional government formed by small bloc of the FFC. Small bloc because it lost two major and active partners – The Communist and the Baath – The Umma party is showing big differences among its leaders. A serious split is around the corner.
What is really amazing is the stance of the too mechanisms – The tripartite and the Quadruple – The members of the two are carefully selected scholars in politics and conflict resolutions. They are definitely evaluating the outcome of a transitional government formed by skeptical army leaders, civilian components far below the critical mass of guaranteeing safe cruising at turbulent conditions. Why do they want to form a weak government facing tremendous hurdles and challenges? Hurdles put by the military component, the ousted regime incubator, the Islamic Movement, the revolutionary committees, the big sectarian party Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) which has the east of Sudan as its hub of millions of supporters like Tirik leader of the Bija tribes of the east who has full allegiance to DUP as following Khatmiya Sect.
The military component is divided into two the major and most influential is the Armed Forces which is not fully convinced and supporting the Framework Agreement which will result in a government not acceptable by them.
The other is the Rapid Support Forces of General Himidti that is fully backing the Framework Agreement and its foreseen government.
Challenges facing the new transitional government are:
- Seriously deteriorating economy with sharp shortage in the Chapter of revenues of the budget. The two major sources of the government revenues are hard-hit by the decreasing value of the currency and recession which sharply reduced the revenues of customs and taxation. The incumbent government struggles every month to avoid tackling problems related to Chapter I – salaries.
- Eruption of deadly confrontations in Darfur and Kordofan.
- Resurfacing of the leaders of the ousted regime incubator – The Islamic Movement -. They consolidated their membership and started addressing rallies openly.
Having lived the hurdles and challenges facing the new transitional government it seems to me that the armed forces leadership, the two international mechanisms are waiting for an imminent early failure of the third transitional government and reactivate the vicious circle for a well-calculated hybrid coup.