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Sudan's regime poised to self-destruct
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06/07/00
Sudan's
regime poised to self-destructIt is not only in Iran that an Islamist-labelled political system is showing signs of unravelling. Another test case for Islamism, Sudan, is showing signs of a free-fall.
What distinguishes Sudan's crisis in its Islamist regime from that in Iran is the personal nature of the feud, the dispute over the prerogatives of power and the political backdrop of advanced disintegration of the country, now a bewildering mixture of tribal, militia and factional conflicts that have fed and have been fed by a civil war which has claimed upwards of one and a half million lives.
You sack me, I'll sack you
The latest round in the tussle between Dr. Hasan al-Turabi and 'Umar Hasan al-Bashir (see IAA, Jan-Feb 2000) began last December when Bashir dissolved parliament (of which Turabi was Speaker) and imposed a state of emergency.
This was followed on May 4 by a convening of the ruling National Congress Party where Bashir brought forward the date for presidential elections from April 2001 to the coming October, and attempted to secure endorsement for his candidature.
Suspecting that Bashir's inevitable election would serve to enhance the role of the presidency and of the executive at the expense of Turabi's role as leader of the ruling party the National Islamic Front, Turabi boycotted the meeting.
In response Bashir launched a fierce attack on his erstwhile mentor and ideologue, accusing Turabi of trying to incite a coup, and two days later went on to all but remove Turabi from his post as Secretary General of the party. Those allied with Turabi, including the party chiefs in all 26 states, were suspended. Turabi and his followers, in turn, accused Bashir of having acted beyond his powers and issued a reciprocal dismissal.
The situation remained, each party unwilling to leave the centre stage to the other by forming a new party, until June 26 when the National Congress Party shura (consultative council) met behind closed doors and 381 of the 580 members endorsed Bashir's measures to remove Turabi. Turabi's followers had boycotted the meeting. As a temporary replacement Ibrahim Ahmad 'Umar was elected Secretary General.
A day later Turabi announced the formation of a new party, the Popular National Congress, and the rift in Sudan's Islamism was sealed.
Absurdity
Commentators have pointed to the surreality of a government moving in to crack down on its own party, but in many ways the system as represented by the National Congress Party was flawed from the start.
The ideals of its Islamist grass roots were sidelined as early as 1978 when the party took an 'end justifies the means' approach to political power, gaining positions of influence in a way incompatible with the Islamic principles of the movement. On gaining power - by a military coup - the 'Islamisation' programme turned out to be less a matter of ideological principle and its implementation than the maintenance of the party's position, irrespective of the contortions it endured to achieve that. With the Islamist rank and file of the party largely ignored, the 'means' impulse ended up postponing the 'end' indefinitely.
The Islamist regime may now end up paying for that, as its two figureheads compete for a rapidly dwindling support resource.
Bashir's attempts to woo support both internally, with the participation of the opposition parties in an election in October, and externally, by attempting to put a pluralistic and democratic face on the regime by the appointment of Sudanese Christian Lawrence Lual Lual and the human rights lawyer Tigani al-Siraj as deputies of the south; are probably doomed to failure.
Most mainstream parties refuse to join a political system with Turabi's formative stamp on it and do not rate highly Bashir's prospects of working under different rules. Despite the split, the ideology remains the same.
Implications of the split
Two ideologically de-gutted parties are all that is left; one led by Bashir and made up of regime loyalists surviving on the state's repressive apparatus, the other led by Turabi and without any political assets built up over ten years in power. Both parties are skirting financial bankruptcy.
Turabi cannot, however, be written off. This is the fourth unsuccessful attempt to oust him from power. In a country 70 per cent Muslim, his ability to cause trouble is undiminished. He can also rely on Islamist sensitivities in Sudan, by stating at the announcement of the new party, that those around Bashir "have begun to separate religion from the state".
The charge is resonant, but the focus of a populace yet to see the benefits of a country at peace and an economy powered by foreign investment in a burgeoning oil sector, may be elsewhere.