Wake-up call: The Transitional Government

By: Consultant/Engineer Omer Al-Bakri Abu Haraz

It is imperative that the players of the present impasse should never opt for forming a partisan transitional government. This will aggravate the prevailing deadlock and will widen the rifts between the competing political blocs.

The inclusion of any political parties or blocs will seriously jeopardize the efforts to reach a consensus on a transitional government with specific terms of reference leading to general elections to end the protracted transitional period.

The transitional government will face serious hurdles, loopholes and challenges, any of which will lead to the failure of the government and to the return to military rule.

Challenges are:

• Rapid deteriorating economic conditions: According to the Central Bank of Sudan (SBOS) the deficit in trade balance reached 1 US$6.7 billion record in more than 10 years. This will lead to a sharp reduction on the value of the pound.
• The second challenge is the deteriorating security in Darfur created by sporadic armed confrontations between local ethnic groups and by the military foreign groups spilling over from Tchad, Central Africa Republic, Mali, Niger and by the Russian Wagner Group which is a paramilitary organization working in those countries and they have connection with one of the Sudanese players of the present impasse. The eruption of wars in Darfur and killing of civilians led the UNSC to renew the sanctions on Sudan especially an embargo of weapons for 18 months.
• The third challenge is the failure to amicably resolve the conflicts in the East of Sudan. Two sizeable tribal groups are battling to get a share in the transitional period. One group is fully supported by the military component and the civilian democratic bloc FFC-2 (Forces of Freedom and Change). The other is supported by FFC-a, the Central Council which signed the Framework Agreement with the military component. This conflict in the East will lead to frequent blocking of the lifeline highway from the only port in the Red Sea to Khartoum.
• The fourth challenge is also created by the continued blocking of the Northern lifeline connecting Sudan with Egypt.

Blocking of the two lifeline highways seriously impede the flow of goods from and to Sudan.

• The fifth challenge is the continued and well organized streets’ demonstrations in the capital and other big cities.

So all the above challenges if not fully resolved by the transitional government, the international community will be skeptical to resume economic aid to Sudan.

Apart from the above five challenges the transitional government has the major task of preparing for general elections which will face the big challenge of fair election of electoral constituencies based on an agreed number of people in each constituency according  to transparent and accurate census. This alone necessitates the complete refrainment of political parties of being part of the transitional government claims and accusations of gerrymandering (manipulation of the boundaries of electoral constituencies so as to favour one party or class).

This gerrymandering happened in the elections of 1957 when elections were conducted by the then incumbent government of Umma Party. This led to the big change in the number of constituencies acquired by the Umma Party compared to those of the transparent fair elections of 1953 conducted by the British rule. In 1953 the National Unionist Party (NUP) got 46 seats, Umma Party 23, Southerners 9, Independents 11 (total 89 seats).

In 1957 elections ran on 173 constituencies, results were: Umma Party 63 seats, NUP 45, Khatmiya Sect. Party (People Democratic Party) 27, South 38. People accused Umma Party of gerrymandering which led to the first military coup of 17 November 1958 (less than a year of the elections of 1957). So this enhances any argument to opt in any final resolve for a non-partisan transitional government.