Post-War Sudan: The Scenario No One Wants to Hear

Mohannad Awad Mahmoud

The question everyone seeks to avoid now imposes itself everywhere: in the offices of politicians who have lost their bearings, in funeral tents, and at the edge of graves when a martyr falls, and his pure blood soaks the earth. Who will govern Sudan once the guns fall silent? Who will carry a state that has emerged from the jaws of the beast?

The harsh truth is that Sudan will not return to what it was before the war, nor will it leap directly into a stable “after”. We are confronting a state that has survived total collapse and must now rebuild itself under a firm central grip — one with no space for illusions or romantic slogans.

The first fact to be established is that the state camp prevented total disintegration. The armed forces stood at the centre of the confrontation, alongside the joint forces, other regular units operating across multiple fronts, and combat brigades that have become symbols of national resilience.

Alongside the regular forces, a broad popular front emerged, comprising mobilised volunteers — most notably the Al-Baraa Brigade volunteers — who confronted brutality when Khartoum was violated, Al-Jazira was burned, and El Fasher was slaughtered. It was this dual formation — regular and popular — that closed the door to state collapse.

On the opposing side stands a bloc with no place in Sudan’s future: the civilian grouping that equated the state with the militia. This bloc adopted a false neutrality at a moment when neutrality amounted to full national betrayal, reducing massacres to tepid phrases such as “errors by both parties to the conflict”. Politically and morally, it has exhausted its legitimacy. It cannot be permitted to re-emerge as an actor in shaping the destiny of a nation that has endured the trauma of war.

This civilian bloc has emerged from the conflict exposed — without organisation, influence, or even the ability to protect itself, let alone a devastated country. Some of its figures became entangled in overt equivocation; others stood observing the destruction while casualty lists in Khartoum and Al-Jazira became material for cold rationalisations. Such discourse cannot lead to a phase that demands state strength rather than trembling statements.

The central question now is clear: who governs Sudan after the war — and how?

The answer, however much some attempt to obscure it, is straightforward: the coming authority will be a transitional arrangement governed by a broad security–military grip. This is not because the military clings to power, but because the country has emerged from profound fragmentation, uncontrolled weaponry, and fractured territorial maps. Any proposal for an exclusively civilian authority at this stage would be a recipe for renewed chaos — this time through legal, constitutional, economic, and administrative instruments capable of undermining the transitional process from within.

As for General al-Burhan, the matter is less about his person than about the headship of the state itself.

At such a moment, Sudan requires a single leadership centre. Multiple heads would mean multiple armies — and multiple armies would mean renewed war.

Will al-Burhan remove his military uniform? That may occur formally when political calculations require it. But changing attire does not alter substance. The country cannot withstand another experiment or an ill-considered gamble.

A realistic transitional period would span between four and six years.

Anything shorter risks opening the door to instability through alternative means: legal and constitutional clashes, entrenched interest networks paralysing state institutions from within, parallel regional alliances, and manufactured political and economic crises designed to destabilise the state. Extending the period beyond that, however, would transform “transition” into permanent rule under a different name.

The initial years would focus on regaining territorial control, restructuring security arrangements, integrating or demobilising fighters, and rebuilding the police, judiciary, and civil service.

Only then would the drafting of a constitution begin, paving the way for elections that serve not as decoration but as the genuine culmination of a process of state restoration.

If formed, the legislative council would not be a parliament of slogans or competing desires.

It would be the parliament of a victorious state:

Direct or politically mediated representation for the armed forces; representation for the joint forces and volunteers; for armed movements allied with the state; for the broad Islamist current; and for selected civilian figures chosen on the basis of discipline rather than noise.

Armed movements would enter according to their geographic weight — that is, the regions they effectively control, their demographic and tribal influence, and their capacity either to guarantee stability or to threaten it.

The historic political parties, meanwhile, have lost much of their social presence, organisational structure, and ability to lead a phase of such depth. They may participate, but with symbolic or limited political weight within a framework designed by the state, not by themselves — participation without leadership.

Those who equated the state with the militia, reduced bloodshed to detached theorising, or embraced equivocation would be excluded entirely.

The broad Islamist current would return, but in a different form:

A constrained return, through alliances rather than dominance, and participatory roles rather than exclusive control. The era of unchecked empowerment would not return — but nor is it realistic to erase a large social and political constituency.

In the end, Sudan, after the war, will not be governed by a single actor. Yet there is only one camp capable of preventing collapse: the state camp.

It will determine the shape of authority, the boundaries of political actors, the ceilings imposed on civilian forces, the roles of Islamists, the structure of governance at the centre and in the regions, and the means by which the state is pulled back from the brink of chaos.

The coming years are not merely a political transition — they are a struggle for survival.

The question is no longer who will govern.

The real question is who will prevent Sudan from falling.

Who can dismantle the logic of war before it consumes the logic of the state itself?

This is the scenario no one wishes to hear.

Yet it is the path Sudan may well be compelled to walk — whether welcomed or resisted.

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