Modernist Forces in Sudan: Coup-Making Is My Profession

Abdullahi Ali Ibrahim

On the 57th anniversary of Nimeiri’s coup, a theory still prevails that whenever the military seizes power, it does so at the instigation of civilian political parties.

By any reckoning, Sudanese have been ruled by coup governments for 58 of the 70 years since independence in 1956. Yet their political elite have neither developed an adequate understanding of this upheaval in their national life nor, perhaps, wished to do so.

Summary

These modernist forces never ceased their uncompromising struggle to restore democratic rule from the grip of dictatorships that some among them had originally brought to power. Yet whenever liberal democracy returned, they quickly grew weary of it and rushed either to overthrow it through a coup or to take up arms against it.

A few days ago marked the 57th anniversary of Lieutenant Colonel Jaafar Mohammed Nimeiri’s coup of May 25, 1969, through which he ruled Sudan until April 1985, when a popular uprising overthrew him. It was the second coup against a liberal democratic system. The first had been General Ibrahim Abboud’s coup of November 17, 1958, which was itself swept away by a peaceful popular revolution in 1964. It was followed by Brigadier Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir’s coup against a democratic government in June 1989, a regime that endured for three decades until April 2019, when it was toppled by the mass movement that began in December 2018.

If we also count the October 2021 coup carried out by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo against the transitional government, Sudan has been governed by coup regimes for 58 of its 70 years of independence since 1956.

Misdiagnosing the Coup

Despite this record, Sudanese political discourse has failed to analyze the political, social, and economic roots of the coup phenomenon. Instead, political thought has either portrayed coups as a judgment upon parliamentary democracy, turned them into another subject of partisan taunting—“let he who has never staged a coup cast the first stone”—or even endorsed them as legitimate, arguing that the military serves as the vanguard capable of leading nations of the Third World toward modernity and progress.

As a result, understandings of the coup have diverged. Some have viewed it as a corrective political authority that rescues the nation whenever political parties descend into conflict and chaos. Others have absolved the military of responsibility altogether, blaming civilian parties for mobilizing the army behind the back of parliamentary democracy to impose their political projects by force. Still others saw no need to regard coups as a political sin, believing that liberal democracy was either unsuitable for the Third World or premature for societies such as Sudan.

A persistent theory emerged claiming that although the military executes coups, civilian political actors are the ones who inspire and direct them. This theory was reinforced by Prime Minister and Defense Minister Abdullah Khalil’s invitation to the military in November 1958 to take control of the state, ostensibly to save it from partisan decay. Later, people witnessed leftist parties surrounding Nimeiri’s 1969 coup, just as Islamists later surrounded Bashir’s 1989 coup, further strengthening the perception that coups were fundamentally partisan projects.

Yet while civilian and partisan involvement in these coups may indeed be factual, the theory of civilian instigation effectively removes the military from politics altogether. Such a view is far removed from reality. Sudan’s military was continuously engaged in wars in South Sudan and elsewhere, making it a significant political actor with direct interests in military preparedness, state budgets, public opinion, and foreign relations that secured access to arms imports.

The Coup as a Supposed Remedy

Another distortion in Sudanese political thinking has been the notion that coups are a justified restraint upon political parties whenever parliamentary democracy descends into disorder.

At an early stage, Mansour Khalid justified the military’s overthrow of liberal democracy in connection with the November 17, 1958 coup. In his view, the country had reached a point where neither government nor opposition respected the rules of democratic practice. Abdullah Khalil, himself a former military officer, therefore instructed the army to terminate this dysfunctional political process and assume power.

According to Mansour Khalid, Khalil’s military upbringing made him intolerant of political disorder because he viewed politics as a mission rather than a profession. What democracy regarded as the normal contest between government and opposition, Khalil saw as democratic decay through unfair political maneuvering. Since politics abhors a vacuum, the coup became, in this reasoning, a legitimate rescue operation.

Later, Mansour Khalid developed an even more explicit theory legitimizing coups. In articles written during the mid-1960s and later collected in Dialogue with the Elite (1979), he openly argued for the political legitimacy of coups. He criticized Sudan’s parliamentary democracy for reducing democracy to little more than voting rights, dismissing it as a “book of deception.” Such democracy, he argued, was impossible in a country where three-quarters of the population were illiterate, living below acceptable human standards and constrained by traditional emotional loyalties.

For him, democracy could not be reduced to elections unless it also guaranteed economic and social rights—including maternal and child welfare. This amounted to an endorsement of “social democracy” and, implicitly, a progressive political role for the military in transforming the old order, contrary to Western democratic doctrine.

Modernist Forces and Electoral Envy

If Sudan’s urban modernist forces were to examine themselves honestly, they would find that they—more than any other political current—have been the principal incubator of coup politics.

Many accuse the traditional Umma Party of being behind the first coup in 1958. While the party has arguments in its defense, it cannot entirely escape responsibility because Prime Minister Abdullah Khalil undeniably ordered the coup. Yet even that military takeover, carried out institutionally through the army’s senior command, can still be traced back to the broader modernist political milieu.

The so-called “Senior Officers’ Movement” that carried out the coup was partly motivated by a desire to preempt younger officers inspired by Nasserism from seizing power first. Indeed, some of those younger officers had already attempted a failed coup in 1957 known as the “Kabida Coup.” Evidence of this preemptive motive can be found in General Ibrahim Abboud’s own belief that senior officers were better suited to govern Sudan than younger ones because they possessed greater experience and understanding of the country.

Similarly, the October 2021 coup by Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo against the transitional government resembles Abboud’s coup in that it was executed by the formal military establishment as part of a broader counterrevolutionary effort against the December 2018 Revolution.

The real incubator of coup politics, however, remains the urban modernist forces regardless of their ideological orientation. The May 25, 1969 coup emerged from the political left, while the 1989 coup emerged from the Islamist right. Yet both reflected the same underlying contradiction.

These modernist forces possess a dual attitude toward democracy. As a modern urban class, they regard democracy as their ideal political system. At the same time, however, democracy is also the system in which they find themselves underrepresented in parliament and government.

Thus they struggle relentlessly to restore democracy after dictatorships, yet once democracy returns, they soon become frustrated with it and resort either to coups or armed rebellion.

I have described this phenomenon as “electoral envy.” Modernist urban forces are numerically small within a political landscape dominated by voters who support traditional parties rooted in Sudan’s Islamic heritage. Although this urban class often controls the instruments of the state, it has historically been denied sustained access to political power through elections. Consequently, it has consistently resented its limited electoral success despite believing itself uniquely qualified to govern.

Distrust of Liberal Democracy

The poor governance associated with traditional parties prevented these modernist forces from developing a genuine attachment to liberal democracy and universal suffrage. Instead, they disparaged the system as “sectarian democracy,” arguing that religious and tribal leaders exercised undue influence over their followers’ votes.

This critique lies at the heart of their dissatisfaction with a democratic order that grants voting rights to all citizens. Consequently, they repeatedly conspired against democracy through coups that weakened the traditional political class standing in the way of their ambitions.

Under their coup regimes, parliamentary democracy based on universal suffrage and political freedom was replaced by distorted institutions such as “People’s Assemblies” and “National Assemblies” during both the Nimeiri (1969–1985) and Bashir (1989–2019) eras. These bodies effectively circumvented popular sovereignty while advancing socialist, Arab nationalist, or Islamist projects imposed from above.

Circumventing Universal Suffrage

Whenever a revolution placed the transitional period under the leadership of these modernist forces, they immediately became concerned about the elections that would inevitably follow—elections they knew would likely favor traditional political forces.

To avoid their anticipated defeat, they sought ways to circumvent the principle of universal suffrage. They proposed three major reforms designed to secure for themselves a level of parliamentary representation disproportionate to their electoral strength.

All three transitional periods following democratic restorations—in 1964, 1985, and 2019—became arenas for these proposals.

First, they repeatedly called for extending transitional periods to postpone elections they expected to lose. Following the 1985 uprising, they sought a five-year transitional period, arguing that the country required time to dismantle the deeply rooted legacy of Nimeiri’s regime. However, both the military council and traditional parties agreed to only one year.

Second, they advocated forms of consociational democracy that would grant urban modernist forces special constituencies, thereby limiting the electoral dominance of rural voters. These proposals sought to increase their parliamentary representation beyond what could be achieved under the liberal principle of one person, one vote.

In December 1985, the Communist Party proposed an electoral reform plan that allocated 110 out of 360 parliamentary seats to modern sectors of society. Workers would receive 35 seats, while professionals and intellectuals would receive 15. Likewise, the National Trade Union Alliance—which had helped lead the 1985 uprising—proposed a 225-seat parliament with 19 seats reserved for workers.

Neither proposal was accepted. The military council and traditional parties insisted on preserving liberal democratic principles in their fullest form.

Shaking the Tree While Others Harvest the Fruit

Modernist groups such as Sumoud frequently speak of “addressing Sudan’s crisis from its roots.” Yet if they were truly self-critical, they would recognize their own place within that crisis—particularly their role in perpetuating the cycle of coups that has defined Sudanese governance since independence.

Virtually every charter issued by modernist political forces, whether under the banner of Sumoud or otherwise, professes commitment to democracy. Yet whenever democracy takes a liberal form, it remains inaccessible to them because its rewards are ultimately enjoyed by their rural and traditional rivals.

After every democratic restoration achieved through immense sacrifice, they find themselves politically marginalized while others reap the benefits. Like the proverbial man who shakes the tree only for someone else to gather the fruit, they respond with frustration—and all too often with another coup.