With an over 300 per cent year-on-year inflation, an economy on its death-bed, and a poor prospect of political and economic progress, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok seemed the most apt politician to establish a technocratic government in Sudan.
He appeared to be the leader to form a solid government to face the uncertain future that is hopelessly heading for a conflict of immense proportions and probably civil war.
However, the premier’s resignation on Sunday puts Sudan’s political instability to another level of uncertainty.
Hamdok’s move is the latest upheaval that will undoubtedly disrupt the country’s already shaky transition to democracy from the previous Omar Hassan Albashir dictatorship.
Hamdok’s resignation comes barely a month after he was restored to power after being deposed in a coup. His restoration was meant to calm political tensions in the country, but his resignation is a vivid pointer to the fact that he failed to gain control of the fractious country.
Tendering his resignation broadcast live on the local, national television, Hamdok reiterated that he reached the decision after his efforts to bring peace to his homeland failed.
“I have tried my best to stop the country from sliding towards disaster,” Hamdok said in his address to the nation.
“In view of the fragmentation of the political forces and conflicts between the (military and civilian) components of the transition ... despite everything that has been done to reach a consensus ... it has not happened,” he said.
Sudan “is crossing a dangerous turning point that threatens its whole survival”, he added.
Hamdok is a UK-trained economist who spent most of his professional career in international economic institutions and has notable personal prestige.
Following Hamdok’s departure, the US has called on Sudanese leaders to “set aside differences, find consensus, and ensure continued civilian rule” according to the power-sharing deal from 2019.
“The United States continues to stand with the people of Sudan as they push for democracy,” the US State Department said in a statement. “Violence against protestors must cease.”.
Hamdok was appointed Prime Minister in August 2019 following an agreement that divided power between the army and the Forces of Freedom and Change, the coalition that led to the widespread protests that led to the fall of Bashir.
Hamdok was, however, dethroned on October 25, 2021, when General Abdel Fattah al Burhan staged a coup that handed the entire country leadership back to the military. Although Burhan reinstated Hamdok on November 21, large sections of the population that initially trusted Hamdok as their representative in the transition government stopped trusting him due to the two parties’ controversial agreement.
With the agreement, it was clear that the democratic transition was going to be supervised by the military, and although Hamdok assured that he intended to complete the revolutionary dream, different political and popular leaders did not believe it. This sparked new protests throughout the country with demands of an exclusively civil government without tutelage.
The premier’s resignation leaves entire Sudan’s transition governance in the hands of military personnel as he was the only top civilian representative in the country’s current transition top leadership.
CHAOS SINCE AL BASHIR TOPPLING
Sudan has continually been engulfed in endless disputes prior to and after the toppling of its former military ruler and dictator Bashir.
Bashir, a warmonger, scheduled to be handed over to the ICC for crimes against humanity in Darfur, ruled his country with an iron fist for three decades characterized by authoritarianism, corruption and impunity, until his fall due to a popular uprising in 2019.
In an interesting turnaround of events, the 77-year-old Bashir is currently being held in Khartoum’s Kober Prison, from where he once held and tortured his opponents.
For more than a decade, the ex-Sudan ruler defied international justice, strutting during his visits abroad, despite the arrest warrants that the ICC had issued against him in 2009 and 2010 for “war crimes, crimes against humanity, and “genocide” in Darfur.
The conflict in Darfur, a region of western Sudan, pitted militias related to Bashir and rebel groups of ethnic minorities. It caused 300,000 deaths and 2.5 million displacements.
Bashir was re-elected president twice in 2010 and 2015, in elections characterised by malpractices and boycotted by the opposition.
On April 11, 2019, he was overthrown by the army due to pressure from the massive demonstrations that rocked the country. Until then, Bashir had ruthlessly crushed any protest.
Married to two wives, Bashir was not blessed with any children of his own. He was born in Hosh Bannaga, about 200 kilometres north of Khartoum, in what was then Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, in a poor family of the Al-Bedairyya Al-Dahmashyya tribe, one of the most powerful from the country.
He was trained at the Egyptian military academy and, in 1973, participated in the war against Israel alongside the Egyptian army.
On June 30, 1989, supported by a group of officers, he seized power in Khartoum and overthrew the democratically elected government of Sadek al-Mahdi, thus assuming the Sudan presidency.
Bashir then had the support of the National Islamic Front, the party of his mentor, Hassan al Turabi, under whose influence he led Sudan (a highly divided country with a predominantly Muslim north and a Christian south) towards radical Islam.
Sudan then became an international Islamist centre, hosting al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden before expelling him in 1996 under US pressure.
In the late 1990s, Bashir distanced himself from Al Turabi and turned away from radical Islam to improve relations with his adversaries and neighbors.
