Thoughts on the Speed of Sudan’s Political Process
In the 1980s I lived for a while in Nyala in south Darfur. It is the terminus of the railway that runs all the way from Port Sudan, through Khartoum and Kosti, to Darfur. At that time there was a railway timetable singular in its simplicity: “˜The train will leave on Monday, sharp.’ I liked the precision contained in this schedule, usually transmitted orally through the town’s large marketplace. The train did indeed leave as promised, and duly arrived at its destination after its epic trek across the savanna and desert, perhaps after delays during which locomotive, carriages or track were repaired en route. But when it arrived was a different matter: the journey could be few days or several weeks.
Sudanese politics has some features in common with Sudan railways in those days, after Jaafar Nimeiri had dismantled the rail workers’ union and starved the once-proud network of investment, when it was, we were told every year, being “˜rehabilitated.’ Most importantly, Sudanese politics is constrained in its operating speed. The train cannot go faster, at least not much.
The formalities of Sudanese politics take time. Passing legislation in the National Assembly, counting people and checking the statistics to produce a credible census, demarcating borders””all are time consuming affairs. It is especially so when the process is consultative or democratic. This is even the case within the armed forces. The Chief of Staff may be able to order a halt to aerial bombardment from one day to the next, but if the President orders a ceasefire, the next step is for the Chief of Staff to convene a committee to figure out exactly what the instruction means (a ceasefire is a complex military operation that doesn’t actually prohibit firing, under certain circumstances), before transmitting orders to the field.
The processes of political bargaining””making the deals in the auction of loyalties””also take time. Haggling over the price is usually quicker than talking through every line in a document, but when the money is scarce (as at present, after oil revenues have crashed) the negotiations can be protracted and acrimonious. And a deal, once made, may last as little as eighteen months or two years. This is how the security chiefs keep the militias in line. Looking back at the parliamentary regimes in Sudan, coalition politics was a frustratingly slow and inefficient business. If the mid-term elections this year are even moderately democratic, we can expect a gap of several months while a new governing coalition is put together, after which the political pace will remain slow.
One of the reasons why the Abuja negotiations for a Darfur peace agreement in 2006 failed was that the mediators tried to accelerate the process beyond what the parties’ could take. By contrast, negotiating the CPA was a much more drawn-out process.
In the fifth year of the CPA’s Interim Period, with a huge raft of political business facing the Sudanese political leaders, the operational capacity of the political system will be taxed. Holding elections, forming a new government of national unity, resolving issues such as Abyei and the border, passing the legislation for the referendum on self-determination””this is a full agenda for a well-functioning government, let alone one that will be preoccupied with financial solvency and the ICC. If the international community is serious about holding the referendum on schedule in January 2009, or even a few months late, it should try to make Sudan’s political agenda is less crowded and more expedited.
I think Sudan railways were faster and efficient than Sudanese political elites and political system, the railways used to be every punctual I member in the early seventies Elobied train used to leave Khartoum at 6:05pm and arrive at ElObied at 3:50 pm next day and as kids we used to come out exactly at that time to see the train approaching the station in El Obied and it’s used to carry soldiers returning back from south Sudan where they used to fight against the first rebel movement. Now the current government has totally destroyed the railways and dismantled the main station in the centre of Khartoum and sold out it’s land to their investors, that still something beneficial, but the political elites are totally hopeless and beyond any repair and are not suitable for any useful purpose. I think they need full replacement.
Sudan gained it’s independent from the British rule in 1956, by unanimous vote in the democratically elected parliament in December 1955, sine that we experience three democratic period which lasted for 11 years, and 3 military coups lasted for 41 years, and now after more that 50 years since our independent still haven’t got permanent constitution or a consensus on how to govern the country, and the most importantly facing the challenge of division and unrest in many part of the country.
The article has taken me years back before the author took the long way to Nyala. My first journey in 1962 to Elobeid from El-Nihud was indeed exciting. My prime wish was to see the train with my own eyes and check the authenticity of the claim of its puctuality. I never understood how it worked but I stood on the platform to check on the arrival time. To my astonishment it came one minute earlier but had to slow to come to a halt on time. The train was punctual and on time while our politicians were lagging behind. From there on the time lapse between the speed our leaders dealt with issues became slower and Nimeiry decided that trains should equally run slower until parity is achieved. At the moment Sudan needs to get rid of the old locomotves as well as the politicians slowing the progress of the country and replace both with new gears. The New Sudan no longer accepts a system that fails to draw a permanent constitution or unite the nation.
At times it is too easy to become fatalistic about Sudan and its dysfunction. The comments by Hafiz and Tahir about Sudan Railways in its glory days, before the destruction wreaked upon it (deliberately) by Nimeiri, remind us that things can be different–they have been different and can be so again. Sudan’s civil service was once famous across the continent for its professionalism and efficiency, its university and health service had the reputation of the highest quality, its public services were the envy of its neighbours. And I travelled the length and breadth of Darfur in 1985-86 without a thought for personal safety, confident that I would be welcomed in any village or camp, without any threat to my security. Many Sudanese radicals seek little more than restoring what has been lost.