What does the Sudanese army’s announcement that it will not hand over power without elections mean?

Sudanese Army Commander Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan eats Ramadan breakfast with citizens of the Shaqalwa area in the Nile River State (Sovereignty Council Media)

The announcement by member of the Sovereignty Council and Assistant Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Army, Yasser Al-Atta, that the army would not hand over power to civilian forces except through elections, and that army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan would be the head of state during the transitional period, sparked controversy among the Sudanese factions, and opposition forces accused the army of seeking to continue in power and establish Autocratic rule.

Al-Atta said that the army will not hand over power to political or civil forces or parties without elections.

He added in a speech before the leaders of the National Forces Coordination in support of the army in Omdurman, "There must be a transitional period in which the Commander-in-Chief of the Army is the head of the state and its supervisor, in which the security services participate, led by the army, police, and security."

Political settlement

Al-Atta’s speech came two days after the Communist Party, the National Umma Party, and the Arab Socialist Baath Party revealed, in a joint meeting in Cairo, a draft political settlement that would establish a comprehensiveness in which the army, the Rapid Support Forces, armed movements, and civil organizations would share power for 10 years.

Al-Burhan said last February that “if the war does not end, there will be no political process in Sudan.”

The international and regional community is pressing to approve a political process in conjunction with the ceasefire negotiations, but there are disagreements about who participates in the process and its timing.

An official in the Sovereignty Council clarifies that Yasser Al-Atta did not mean the army taking control of power, but rather supervising the transitional phase that follows the war, through a presidential council led by Al-Burhan and the formation of a government of non-partisan national competencies to run the country after a comprehensive Sudanese-Sudanese dialogue conference to determine the political future.

According to what the official told Al Jazeera Net, what Al-Atta is calling for is similar to what happened after the April 1985 revolution, when the Minister of Defense and Army Commander, Abdul Rahman Siwar Al-Dhahab, formed a transitional military council headed by him, which was carrying out the duties of sovereignty, and a civil government headed by the head of the Jazouli Doctors Syndicate, Dafallah, before transferring Power is transferred to an elected government after a year.

The same speaker believes that the post-war period will be dangerous due to the repercussions of the fighting and great challenges to restoring security and stability, “which requires the active presence of the military establishment and security services,” in his opinion.

New map

On the other hand, the leaders of the opposition forces criticized Yasser Al-Atta, and considered that the goal of the war was to keep the army in power and establish authoritarian rule.

Yasser Arman, a member of the leadership body for the Coordination of Democratic and Civil Forces “Taqaddum,” considers Al-Atta’s speech “a rare moment of honesty in which he revealed the true goals of this war and the intentions of those behind it. It was never for the sake of dignity or the homeland, but rather for the sake of restoring power and prestige to the people.” Before the Islamists, their affiliates, and their allies among the senior officers.”

Arman calls for the necessity of separating the ceasefire negotiations from the political process, which must not be left to the two parties to the conflict. Otherwise, “power will end in the hands of the military and in isolation from the people and the slogans of the revolution in civilization and democracy. He who owns a gun does not write himself naughty.”

In turn, the leader of the Forces of Freedom and Change and Vice-President of the National Congress, Khaled Omar, believes that the statements of the Assistant Army Commander about the authority reveal “the truth about one of the goals of the war, which is to consolidate authoritarian military authority and block the way to any democratic civil transformation.”

Khaled Omar wrote on the XN platform, “The civil forces will remain against this war, and will not side with any of its forms or parties.”

For his part, the former Minister of Youth and Islamic leader in the banned National Congress Party - formerly ruling - Haj Majid Siwar believes that Al-Atta’s statements have put everyone in front of a new political map that goes beyond the post-regime of former President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019 with all its disadvantages.

Through a Facebook post, he calls on the political forces to deal positively with the army’s vision presented by Al-Atta and to submit proposals to improve it.

The same perpetrator proposes to implement the Siwar al-Dhahab model by forming a military council to manage sovereignty and security affairs and a civilian government to manage governance affairs, address the effects of war, improve the lives of citizens, begin the reconstruction of the country, and set a transitional period not to exceed two years before holding elections.

Militarization of politics

Political analyst and policy expert Haj Hamad says that Al-Atta’s position is the case of the military in Sudan and its attempt to impose interference in politics, and that it is the result of the parties’ interference in the military institution to use it in the political conflict.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Hamad believes that what Sudan is witnessing at the current stage is a conflict between two armies “panting” to find civilian cover, as the “progress” forces signed a pact with the Rapid Support Command, and the army sought another pact with the “Democratic Bloc” to be a cover for forming a government. loyal to him.

Haj Hamad does not expect a change in the positions of international powers towards the situation in Sudan and the parties to the conflict, and he expects that the next government will be like the current one, and its political support may decrease if Islamist figures appear in its ranks.

As for the political analyst and editor-in-chief of Elaph, Khaled Al-Tijani, he believes that the civil forces should not be part of the negotiations and arrangements to end the war, and that their insistence on participating will lead to the “militarization of politics” and repeat the ongoing mistakes in the country’s history, and they will pay the price for that.

In a statement to Al Jazeera Net, Al-Tijani says that the civil and military forces do not have a mandate to determine Sudan’s political future, and that any party that is not popularly authorized should not be the only one to create the political scene, and that the parties to the fighting are not parties to resolve political issues.

The same analyst believes that the challenges of the post-war period require that there be a role for the military institution that is not determined by it but through national consensus, the formation of an administrative government that does not have a political decision, and the election of a constituent assembly to determine options in which the people can referendum.

Source: Al Jazeera