Sudan…. Will Political Division Lead to “Militarization of State” and Foreign Intervention?

Sudan Events – Agencies

The war, which entered its second year in Sudan, has increased the rift between the parties and new blocs emerged, some of which lined up behind the military establishment led by the President of the Sovereign Council, Abdul Fattah al-Burhan, while others identified with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemedti.”

Observers believe that this division will make the external factor have the most influence on the Sudanese scene and reduce the chances of resolving the crisis in the hands of the Sudanese, or it may lead to the “militarization of the state.”

They believe that the state of political polarization that escalated weeks before the war poisoned the atmosphere and contributed to inflaming the situation and the transformation from a political division between competing blocs to a military conflict between Al-Burhan and Hemedti, which sparked the fighting in mid-April 2023.

The commanders of the Army and RSF agreed to end their partnership with civilians in the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) Alliance – Central Council, through the “coup” of October 2021, and then signed an agreement with former Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdouk, who resigned from his position in January 2021 following his political incubator rejection of his understandings with the military.

Boiling

After a year of political wrangling, Al-Burhan and Hemedti signed a Framework Agreement with this coalition and came close to signing a final agreement to complete the transitional phase, but the isolation of the rest of the forces led to the “boiling” of the political situation, and then the army commander refused to sign the agreement if a date for integrating the RSF into the army is not determined..

The faltering “Framework Agreement” perpetuated the political division with the FFC – the Democratic Bloc standing with Al-Burhan and the FFC- the Central Council with “Hemedti”, and the worsening situation led to the expansion of polarization in the political scene.

The war did not shake the positions of the active political forces and blocs. Rather, new blocs rose, most notably the “National Forces Coordination,” headed by Malik Aqar, deputy head of the Sovereign Council and head of the “SPLM-North,” and the National Line Alliance, which includes youth forces and civil society organizations, and the Sudanese National Initiative.

Last week, Cairo witnessed separate meetings that included the FFC-Democratic Bloc headed by Jaafar Al-Mirghani, Vice President of the Democratic Unionist Party, the National Movement Forces Alliance headed by Al-Tijani Sisi, former governor of the Darfur region, and the National Reconciliation Forces Alliance led by Mubarak Al-Fadil al-Mahdi, head of the Umma Party.

he common denominator of these blocs was their support for the legitimate civil state institutions and the armed forces to maintain the structure of the unified Sudanese state, and the political groups considered that standing with the military institution would protect against the collapse of the state and the fragmentation of the country.

New transformation

The FFC- Central Council, which represented the ruling coalition, entered into a new alliance with civil forces in October 2023, and within the Coordination of Civil Democratic Forces “Taqaddum”, it chose former Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdouk as head of the alliance, and announced that it was in a position of Neutrality from the war, and will lead efforts between both sides to end it.

However, Hamdouk and Hemedti’s signing of a declaration in Addis Ababa on January 2, sparked a storm of criticism of the nascent alliance, and Assistant Commander-in-Chief of the Army Yasser Al-Atta accused it of being the political wing of the RSF.

On the other hand, Hamdouk maintained that they were neutral and said in a speech yesterday, Sunday, on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the war, that they were “not biased towards any party, but they are not neutral or mediators towards the victims of the war whose money and property were stolen and who were subjected to serious crimes and violations.”

Another bloc adopted a different position before the war and still does, as 10 Sudanese bodies, most notably the Communist Party and a wing of the Professionals Association, announced in July 2022 a new political bloc to overthrow the regime under the name “Alliance of Forces for Radical Change.”  The two active movements in the coalition were part of the FFC that led the street to overthrow the regime of deposed President Omar Al-Bashir.

Communist Party leader Kamal Karar told Al Jazeera Net that a year after the war, the pace of political and even ethnic polarization is escalating, and he considered it an extension of the ongoing polarization and fragmentation before the war, and “everyone wants their share of the cake of the transitional period, or is looking for a Trojan horse to return to power or reproduce the former regime.”

He believes that the current reality is an inevitable result of what was left behind by the Constitutional Document that established the partnership between the security committee of the Bashir regime and the FFC coalition, and then the Juba Peace Forces, from the armed movements in Darfur.

Repercussions:

Karrar believes that this equation established quotas and more power struggles between political and civil forces before the conflict extended to the military component, leading to war.

He adds that the goal of the war is to liquidate the people’s revolution, and that the Communist Party is engaged in tireless work to establish a broad alliance of revolutionary forces on the basis of radical change to achieve the goals of the revolution and block the way against its enemies.

For his part, researcher and political analyst Khaled Saad does not believe that there are real national political forces that stand with RSF, but rather that there are social incubators driven by tribalism and spoils.

He told Al Jazeera Net that some of the forces that were overthrown by the army and the RSF are forced to hide behind neutrality and the slogan “No to war” for fear of losing their grassroots of those who refuse to be loyal to the military, considering this step a reproduction of the regime that the youth revolted against in December 2018, and “therefore  Party competition is the indicator, not the position towards the army itself.”

Saad believes that some “politicized” military leaders sometimes invest in political division, but the head of state seems aware of this “pitfall,” and he expected to take steps to confirm the credibility and confidence in the unity of the national forces in order to “defeat the militias,” because the dynamics of war constantly produce a single army not loyal to one political party or movement.

He explains that the forces aligned with the army, most of them have different orientations, are seizing the opportunity to replace them with the forces that were in power before the military’s coup against civilian forces in 2021.

The political analyst adds that the prominent repercussions of polarization are providing the opportunity for foreign intervention without regard to the independent national will, and it can also lead to the militarization of the state if conditions are created for that.