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Asharq Al-Awsat
28-03-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Sudan: Founding Alliance Nominates Hemedti to Lead Presidential Council in Parallel Government
Izzadin Al-Safi, advisor to the leader of the Rapid Support Forces, revealed that the Ta'sis (Founding) alliance has unanimously agreed to nominate RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, president of the presidential council in the parallel government set to be formed under the Nairobi Charter. This agreement includes the RSF and its allied military and civilian factions. Al-Safi expects the formation of the parallel government to be announced immediately after Eid al-Fitr, stating: 'Consultations and agreements on forming the Unity and Peace Government have reached very advanced stages, and it is highly likely that its formation will be announced after the holiday.' Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Safi confirmed that the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), led by Abdelaziz Adam Al-Hilu, along with other factions within the alliance, will hold leadership positions in the new government. He asserted that recent military developments have not affected plans to announce the parallel cabinet. On the contrary, he said, 'They have only strengthened the determination to form this government and end military rule over state institutions.' Dismissing claims of internal disputes over ministerial positions, Al-Safi emphasized that the focus is not on power-sharing but rather on 'consensus, participation, and competence—while taking into account the relative weight of each faction.' He also stated that military leaders within the Ta'sis alliance have agreed that the new government's primary mission will be protecting civilians. Additionally, these forces will serve as the 'nucleus of a new national army, incorporating all armed factions.' A unified military command is also planned, including a Security and Defense Council and other military bodies. According to Al-Safi, 'Leaders of the armed factions will be part of the senior command structure, ensuring their participation in all military operations to protect civilians.' The Ta'sis alliance was formed in Nairobi, Kenya, on February 22, bringing together the RSF, armed movements, political parties, and civilian groups. Key members include the SPLM, led by Abdelaziz Al-Hilu, the Revolutionary Front, and factions from the Umma and Democratic Unionist parties. The alliance's political charter adopted a transitional constitution, marking the first official recognition of Sudan as a secular, democratic, and federal state.
Asharq Al-Awsat
01-03-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Political Factionalism Season in Sudan
Sudanese political parties and movements have long suffered from factionalism, but this problem is now at its peak. No party has managed to remain intact, and some have fragmented into small factions that are difficult to reunite. The war, which has been raging for nearly two years now, deepened and broadened these divisions. In many cases, divergences in positions do not stem from analytical disagreements but regional, ethnic, and social factors. The latest public split was that of the National Umma Party. Some of its bodies decided to dismiss the acting party leader, Fadlallah Burma Nasir. In response, he dissolved the bodies that had announced his dismissal, and there are now three factions vying for legitimacy. There are several reasons for this schism- one is a battle for succession among the kin of the party leader, Imam Sadiq al-Mahdi. This struggle was aggravated by the war, with party leaders adopting divergent positions. Tensions escalated when the party leader signed an alliance with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), along with political forces and armed movements that convened in Nairobi to form the "Tasees Alliance," whose stated intention was to establish a rival government to General Burhan's administration. This scenario unfolded along the same exact lines in all Sudanese political parties, with variations in the degree and nature of the splits. The Democratic Unionist Party, one of Sudan's two major parties, had already been in dire straits when the war broke out after having splintered into too many factions with slightly different names to count. Even the family of Sayyid Muhammad Uthman al-Mirghani (head of the Khatmiyya Sufi order) was split between his two sons, Jaafar and Hassan, breaking what remained of the party in two. Meanwhile, another prominent member of the Khatmiyya family, Ibrahim al-Mirghani, signed the Nairobi Charter and joined the "Tasees Alliance." The Sudanese Communist Party, once the most prominent party of the Left in the region, is undergoing a silent crisis. One faction seeks a broad alliance with the political forces opposed to conflict and in favor of restoring civilian rule, while the other, led by Secretary-General Muhyiddin Al-Khatib, has taken a hardline position, branding all former allies as untrustworthy and refusing to cooperate with them. Some members of one faction have written pieces critical of the Secretary-General's faction, but the opposing side has remained silent and, aligning with party tradition, kept the debate out of public view. The Islamic movement had already split into two parties (the National Congress Party and the Popular Congress Party) when they fragmented themselves. Other leftist parties have splintered along similar lines: the Baath Party has split into three factions, the Nasserists into two, while other leftist organizations that had played a role in the revolution have either weakened or disappeared. The issues plaguing Sudan's older political parties are strikingly uniform. They have essentially stagnated and failed to rejuvenate or adopt new leadership and programs. A telling reflection of this stagnation is that the four major parties (including the Islamic movement and the Communist Party) have been led by the same figures for forty to fifty years. The parties have failed to draw youth because they have been unable to modernize their discourse. Most of them do not have a clear program that can appeal to new members. Instead, they rely on regional, sectarian, and ethnic affiliations or on outdated ideological slogans that have not been updated to align with the new state of affairs in the country. In some cases, party membership is inherited. Instead of political programs or ideological convictions, partisan loyalties are an extension of kinship or tribal ties. Moreover, most parties are not internally democratic. Many either refrain from consistently regular conferences to elect leadership and discuss party programs or hold sham conferences to create the facade of democracy, while the real decisions (alliances and internal appointments to position) are made behind the scenes. The post-war period will certainly bring major upheaval in Sudan's political landscape. The scene will be redrawn, fracturing old loyalties, erasing the disappearance of major parties, and giving rise to new ones. The regional and local parties and movements that have proliferated during the war will become particularly prominent. It will be a tsunami, and only those who have prepared for it by modernizing, restructuring, developing their programs, and adapting to the new and complex state of affairs will survive it.
