The thwarting of the Sudanese coup.. Will it be the culmination of the crisis of transferring power from the military to the civilians?

KHARTOUM -

“Today’s speech to the Chairman of the Transitional Sovereign Council, Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his deputy, Lieutenant General Mohamed Hemedti, is more dangerous than the coup itself,” a member of the Sudanese Professionals Association summed up the growing gap between the military-civilian partnership in power following the thwarting of a military coup.

Now, civilians in the Sudanese transitional government are groping for their "weapons" in conjunction with the growing fears of the efforts of the military component in the authority to orchestrate a bloodless coup that will produce a new political equation that it controls.

A high-ranking official in the Sudanese government told Al Jazeera Net that the military component was becoming deeply concerned with the increasing number of questions they received from Western officials about when and how to transfer power from the military to the civilians in the Sovereign Council, which is supposed to take place on November 17.

Sudan is going through a transitional period of 3 years divided equally between the military, civilians and armed movements that signed a peace agreement, and civilians are expected to preside over the second half of the transitional period.

What is the height of the conflict?

And it is expected that the next 50 days - until the date of the transfer of power - will witness a lot of rivalries between the military and civilians, the manifestations of which were manifested - according to the official - in the events of the security chaos in Khartoum and the Darfur region, and then escalated with the closure of the eastern Sudan region at the hands of "Turk", the overseer of the Handandwa tribes.

But a dramatic development occurred yesterday, Tuesday, when the army announced that it had thwarted a coup attempt, which in turn turned into a point of contention between civilians and the military.

After the coup was thwarted, Al-Burhan and Hemedti appeared in two simultaneous speeches today, Wednesday, in front of their forces, to accuse the political forces preoccupied with conflicts amid the aggravation of economic crises.

Al-Burhan went further, when he said that there is no elected government in the country, and the armed forces are the guardians of the security and unity of Sudan, while Hemedti attributed the multiplicity of coups to the differences of the parties.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok said in a speech to the Sudanese after the failed coup attempt that it was necessary to restructure the regular forces, and the mandate of the Ministry of Finance over its investment companies.

What is the military afraid of?

According to information provided by a senior official in the government, the military's fears increased, with the increasing inquiries raised by American and European officials about the arrangements for transferring the presidency of the Transitional Sovereign Council to civilians.

He says that the military is behind the security chaos in Khartoum and behind the protest movement in eastern Sudan, which led to the closure of the national road and the ports and airports of Port Sudan.

According to the former official, Al-Burhan is angry because the file of normalization with Israel - after the great effort he made in the file - is on its way to be in the hands of civilians.

The military also has fears that delaying justice for the massacre of the sit-in dispersal in front of the Army General Command on June 3, 2019 is according to a plan aimed at transferring power to civilians, and then starting to try the military.

The same official explains that, according to all of this, the military is working to move the ground under the feet of the forces of freedom and change, which is the ruling coalition, in order to achieve a bloodless coup, or at least reach a political equation that it controls, by supporting dissident groups from the ruling coalition and forces that were allied in The regime of ousted President Omar al-Bashir.

The last of the military papers?

Although the government, both military and civilian, announced that a coup attempt had been thwarted on Tuesday, the strategic military expert, Major General "M" Muhammad Khalil Al-Saem, ruled out a classic military coup.

Al-Saim believes - in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that the traditional coup by seizing power by closing roads, controlling radio and television and arresting the ruling class remains a scenario far from the current reality.

However, Major General Al-Saem says that the military is expected to seek a bloodless coup through political alliances, which is now evident in the military's concern in the government over the transfer of power according to the constitutional document.

Al-Burhan had spoken before his forces about the necessity of not excluding political forces from others, accusing some of them of fighting over chairs, and of wasting the slogans of the revolution that overthrew the Bashir regime in its struggles over power.

The response of the political forces

In light of civilians’ fears that the military will move to a new square in the conflict that may threaten the democratic transition, journalist Maher Abu Al-Goukh, who is close to the ruling civilian component, says that the experience of the transition in Sudan - unlike the experiences of the Arab Spring - is immune from undermining and relapse.

Abu Al-Joukh explains that the Sudanese have gained a long experience in dealing with the military from two revolutions that preceded the December 19, 2019 revolution, namely the October 1964 revolution and the April 6, 1985 uprising.

He adds that despite the pressures of regional axes, the battle to hand over power to civilians is the complexity of the political scene in Sudan, but there is no choice but to respond to the provisions of the constitutional document.

The civilian component hastened to take its positions to respond to the speeches of Al-Burhan and Hemeti, in light of expectations of a greater escalation by the forces of freedom and change.

The leader of the Sudanese Professionals Association, Mohamed Naji Al-Asam, said - in a post on his Facebook account - "The normal is for the political forces to be multiple and differentiated, but the abnormal is what happened, and it continues under your sight in the regular forces, there are no security arrangements, no restructuring, and no national army. One".

The former Minister of Trade and Industry, Madani Abbas, said - on his Facebook page - that "the military leaders' failure to cleanse the military establishment of adventurous elements, and their attempt to load the crisis to the political forces with strange misery." The mandate of the Ministry of Finance over public money, and then their leaders talk about a political and economic crisis, caused by the political establishment.”