FFC Three Mistakes

By: Omer Abou – Haraz

It is clear that those who led the two previous popular uprisings which ousted two military regimes were more mature and far sighted. They managed to circumvent the loopholes of transition from military rule to civilian democratic governance.
Three loopholes impede the transition to democracy. These are:
The involvement of political parties in the transitional government, long transitional period and the involvement of the military component in hybrid transitional governance bodies.
Political parties in transitional governance hide behind their partisan slogans and strategies and behind their leaders own personal vested interests. By so doing they mask the needed coherence for the government to deliver.
The long transitional period magnifies the adverse effect of the parties leaders in exercising their parties and personal vested interests. These in turn seriously jeopardize any efforts to achieve the ultimate goals of transitional periods.
Whereas a very short period makes the parties focusing an organizing and consolidating their supporters to force near general elections.
The third loophole is any form of hybrid bodies in the transitional governance. Military and civilian components are immiscible mixture that can never yield a homogenous solution.
In the previous two transitional periods that followed the downfall of General Abboud (1958 – 1964) and General Numerie regime (1969 – 1985), the leaders of the two popular uprisings of October 1964 and April 1985 smartly avoided falling in the three loopholes.
Political parties were not allowed to effectively play any role in transitional governance. The one year transitional period swayed them from disturbing the period. No hybrid bodies were formed. In both cases only the chief-in-command of the army was in the palace representing the sovereignty only- General Abboud and General Suwar Addahab -. They both disappeared from the scene at the onset of forming civilian governance after elections.
On a sad and unfortunate steps the leaders of the December 2018 revolutions fell in the three loopholes:
Dissolving the original incubator of the revolution, the Association of the Sudanese Professionals (ASP) which led the revolution since September 2013. They created on January 2019 an enlarged incubator of the ASP and few political parties. Whereas in the two previous uprisings 1964 and 1965 the Professional Association led the transitional periods to the successful end of general elections. The vested interests of the parties’ leaders impeded the safe wading to the shore of the democratic rule and the retraction of the army to the barracks.
Secondly the partnership between the two components – military and civilians in a long 3 and half years transitional period was a disastrous, aggravated more by the formation of a hybrid Sovereign Council that exchanges chairmanship after the elapse of the first half of the period. It was clear from the beginning when the military component insisted on taking the first half that they intend to stay in chairmanship throughout the whole transitional period. That is exactly what they did after the elapse of their specified tenure. They stayed till now by the military coup of October 25th, 2021.
Thirdly, the agreed upon long transit period widened the gap amongst the civilian component and magnified the effects of leaders personal interests and parties ideologies. The enlarged incubator of the FFC is now split in more than three factions which made it extremely difficult to reach a consensus that lead to the withdrawal of the military component from the political scene and governance.
Now doors are wide open to all options – military full-fledged coup, foreign intervention and civil wars.
The only way-out left is a new military coup that wield the slogans of Freedom, Peace and Justice
OR
The incumbent military rulers rise tall in genuine, nationalistic and impartial steps of forming technocrat non-partisan government of carefully selected persons to prepare for Presidential Elections – transparent, fair and international monitored –