Elections or Consensus?

Rashid Abdelrahim
President Al-Burhan said last Friday that power would only be handed over through consensus.
Yet the word “consensus” raises more questions than it answers.
Consensus has always been a rare commodity in Sudanese politics. Disagreement, political rivalry and military coups have characterised Sudan’s political life from independence to the present day.
Some of the greatest disputes and political battles have historically occurred between the two parties closest in political orientation and practice: the Umma Party and the Democratic Unionist Party.
Coalition governments were formed between them, yet the stronger party in the post-independence period became famous—and even celebrated—for violating the Constitution against its own coalition partner.
The popular slogan was:
“Abu Al-Zuhur… violated the Constitution.”
It was, in essence, a coup-like expression. Yet the party’s supporters took pride in it and celebrated it enthusiastically.
So, consensus with whom?
And between whom?
Is it to be consensus among these frail and weakened political parties?
Or consensus with the armed force that took up weapons against the State—the Rapid Support Forces?
Sudan’s political parties have long engaged in hostility and conflict among themselves.
The Umma Party and the Democratic Unionist Party failed to maintain political agreement. They violated the Constitution through Parliament on one occasion and later resorted to a military coup.
The Umma Party handed power to the army commander, General Abboud.
Later, the three political forces—the Umma Party, the Democratic Unionist Party and the Islamic Charter Front—sought to seize power by force of arms while opposing the May regime.
The communists rode on Nimeiri’s back to reach power by overthrowing a democratic government.
The Islamists seized power in June 1989, also through a coup against a democratic government.
Statements calling for the exclusion of certain political currents—particularly Islamists or those supporting the rebellion—are themselves undemocratic.
The authority to exclude political forces from power, or to empower them, belongs to the people alone.
Only citizens possess that right.
Power does not recognise consensus.
There are two roads to political power: the ballot box or the gun.
The struggle for political office ultimately leads either to death or to government maintained through coercion and force.
Are these realities absent from the minds of the leadership and President Al-Burhan when they decide to hand over power through consensus?
And what exactly is this consensus?
It is a serious political crisis when a leadership reaches conclusions and presents them to the public without explaining what they mean or how those conclusions were reached.
The leadership has arrived at this consensus formula at a time when foreign intervention in Sudanese affairs has reached its peak, and President Trump’s adviser, Massad Boulos, is advancing proposals to resolve the conflict.
What Massad Boulos is proposing amounts to the military empowerment of the Rapid Support Forces through a truce that would enable them to obtain supplies through international humanitarian assistance, replenish their stocks and redeploy their forces.
Such a truce would also enable the rebellion to obtain international recognition as an equal counterpart to the State by negotiating directly with it.
It would grant the RSF international acceptance.
Negotiating with it would also amount to recognising the territories under its control as areas where it exercises governing authority, paving the way for the so-called Tasis Government to be treated as a de facto government.
The Sudanese people have the right to be involved in decisions that determine their future by their government.
There are clear democratic mechanisms through which the people can participate in shaping that future: a constituent assembly that drafts the Constitution and manages the transitional process towards elections.
Talk of consensus merely preserves the existing political order and allows the government to remain in power despite its evident failures across numerous areas.
It continues despite the suffering caused by its confused and weak performance and despite its dismal record in public services, the economy, foreign relations, healthcare and other sectors.

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