Sudan Coup D’Etat Reflects Foundational Cracks in Country’s Governance
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok may be under house arrest, but the United Nations still recognizes him as the country’s legitimate leader. (Wikimedia Commons)
The Sudanese military, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, staged a coup d’etat on October 25. This coup ended the joint military-civilian government that had been in place since protests in 2019 led to the fall of longtime Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. The military forces placed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok under house arrest, limiting his ability to hold meetings with officials in the country. While Burhan has promised to hold nationwide elections in 2023, domestic protests and international condemnation have put pressure on the regime to restore the previous transitional government.
The weeks before the coup were host to mass protests, in which pro and anti-military demonstrators took to the streets. Sudan has yet to have national elections after the fall of Bashir; since then the state has been led by an 11-member Sovereign Council composed of civilian and military components. Burhan was a member of the council. Hamdok, meanwhile, served as prime minister, but the country lacked any form of national legislature.
In order to understand the coup, it is crucial to understand that the transitional government was a fundamentally unstable organization never meant to exist for as long as it was stretched to last. While there were mass protests before Bashir was overthrown, it was the military, led by Burhan, that was ultimately responsible for his ousting. One group instrumental in the anti-Bashir protests, the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), came to lead the civilian wing of the Sovereign Council. Burhan’s term as head of the council was supposed to last until May 2021 before the transition to a civilian leader; however, an agreement signed between the two wings of the Sovereign Council in October 2020 reset the clock on this handover of power. Further delays pushed the election deadline back to 2023.
Hamdok’s economic measures, which included slashing subsidies, were wildly unpopular, and inflation in the country hovered around 400 percent during the time of the coup. Hamdok called the pro-military protests the “most dangerous” crisis Sudan faced since the fall of Bashir. Meanwhile, Burhan blamed inter-council squabbling and called for reforms to the FFC. Burhan stopped an attempted coup on September 22, detaining 21 officers involved. However, the coup he led was hot on the heels of mass popular unrest not seen since 2019. In short, the country’s economic turmoil, paired with deep divisions within the government, culminated in the coup on October 25.
The events since the coup have largely been driven by the same forces that led to the coup itself. Aiming to end the civilian-military divisions present in the Sovereign Council, the military detained Hamdok under house arrest, additionally arresting many high-ranking civilian officials. While Burhan promises that elections will still be held in 2023, the mass arrests of civilian leaders have left the country lacking a cabinet and many members of the bureaucracy.
Meanwhile, the military instituted a nationwide telecommunications blackout immediately following the coup. While a November 9 court ruling ordered the reinstatement of service, the network has yet to come back.
Hundreds of thousands of anti-coup protestors have taken to the streets throughout the country. The communications blackout has made such mass gatherings mostly ad-hoc, with one protestor stating that “collective organizing is scattered.” However, protestors have continued to gather under the motto, “No Negotiation, No Partnership, No Compromise.” Despite the military’s statement that their actions of October 25 were not officially a coup d’etat, and were instead simply meant to “correct the course” of the transitional period, wide-ranging international condemnation and the United Nations’ continued recognition of Hamdok’s government have led the military to tighten its restrictions on Hamdok, limiting his ability to hold meetings.
Ambassadors from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Norway met with Burhan on November 9, pressuring him to restore civilian leadership in the nation, but the military’s actions have yet to show any remote correlation to the demands of the international community. As Burhan’s grip on power increases and international outcry continues to fall on deaf ears, his current trajectory steers dangerously close to autocracy.