Has Gen Bashir’s offer of govt of technocrats quietened people?
Regional security organisations across Africa and beyond are taking notes of the situation in Sudan; particularly how President Omar Bashir is dealing with the protesters who have besieged his country since December last year. For the first time, public demonstrations spearheaded by Sudanese professional associations had by early March ebbed significantly., enabling final-year secondary school students to write their examinations.
Among the new measures pledged by President Bashir, is to form a new government dominated by the country’s technocrats to fix the economy.
Other sweeping changes pronounced by Bashir include dissolution of the unity government, a one-year state of emergence, suspension of the constitutional amendment process and appointment of experienced army generals as governors in all the 18 federal states.
Taking responsibility of government failure to adequately fix the current economic challenges that have led to galloping inflation, Gen Bashir called for a nationalist and patriotic united effort to address the challenge.
Surprisingly, Sudanese seem to have heeded Gen Bashir’s call and given him benefit of the doubt. Meanwhile, Gen Bashir is challenging groups that have been responsible for sketching, directing and guiding public demonstrations.
For dissolving the Cabinet, Gen Bashir is essentially telling his critics thus: ‘Hey guys! Here you are; you can now prepare to occupy those technical positions to prove your worth.’ First, in order to pass the moral authority test of competence to occupy a public office, the technocrats have to within these few months demonstrate ability to follow and respect legitimate public orders. This implies that they have to vet themselves and nominate the best candidates for public office.
But by simple logic, the competent nominees cannot be the people who organised violent demonstrations. Bedsides, such conduct now risks to make perpetrators fall culprits of the current ad hock courts of emergency.
Yet Bashir is throwing a carrot to the youth too. He is inviting them to present their grievances and perceptions of how to respond to them. This entails some organisation and paperwork. It calls for a retreat from the demonstrations on the city streets to the intellectual boardroom engagement. This brings in the much needed lull in the chaos that had for three months characterised Sudan.
From a security perspective, Sudan has offered yet a new model in dealing with agitators of change. This phenomenon that has since been branded as ‘Africa’s third major political wave’ is currently sweeping across the continent.
The first wave started in 1956 in Sudan for independence. The second one was about restoration of multiparty democracy in the early 1990s.
The third and current one started a dozen years ago in Nairobi, Kenya 2007 following the controversial swearing in of president Mwai Kibaki by the country’s Chief Justice at night. Four years later, a similar approach was adopted in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
Swaib K Nsereko,
University of Gezira, Sudan
