النادي السياسي: ساهي لاهي وسكري

اجتمع النادي السياسي بصمة خشمه عند الرئيس البشير في قاعة الصداقة، صفوف من الرؤوس معلقة بين العمم والجلاليب، بذقون وبغيرها، فخطب فيهم كما مدير المدرسة في طابور الصباح. شكر الله وصلى على خاتم الأنبياء ثم صرف لهم من النصح "الوطني" ما تيسر في ساعة الليل تلك وبعض البطون تصوصو لا بد في انتظار العشاء، ماذا سيكون الليلة يا ترى؟ استحضر أحدهم، وصوت الرئيس يعذب الميكروفونات تعذيبا، ميقات الدواء فمد يده إلى جيب الجلابية، أسكت حس السمارت فون بحركة أولى فصمت الواتساب عن الجكي جك، جكي جك، وبحركة ثانية ضغط الحبة البيضاء خارج قصديرها، تتك، ثم مدها بسرعة إلى فم مفتوح بحركة تثاؤب متحضرة وألحقها بماء "صافية" لا يغشاه عكر. "لا بأس عليك يا شيخنا"، قال السغيل البصاص من خلفه؛ رد عليه "جزاك الله خير" واستعدل في جلسته. مد ذراعا يكرش ظهر ساقه ثم سحب قدما والأخرى خارج الشبشب اللامع لتغوص في موكيت القاعة البارد، يا سلام، قاتل الله وجع الرجلين.

كان الرئيس وقتها قد وصل "أحابيل" بعد "كلالة" فانتبه صاحبنا يراجع أذنيه، هل هو الشمع يا ترى أم الشعيرات الطويلة التي طالما رفض قصها، شوشت على سمعه. نظر من حوله فرأى الرؤوس تحيط به، هذا يسنده كف أحاط منه بالحنك وذلك قائم على أطراف الأصابع، تومئ بالإيجاب الرزين والعيون تبحلق في غياب، فأومأ هو كذلك برأسه يخشى أن يفوته من المهرجان شئ. لم يستطع التركيز أكثر فدغدغة الموكيت في باطن قدمه فرضت عليه نعاسا لينا حاول الفرار من شركه بتوجيه نظره إلى حيث أصحاب الكاميرات عله يجذب بقوة النظر أحدهم فيرى "الجماعة" صورته في التلفزيون. ندم على الـتأخير الذي فرض عليه الجلوس في هذه الصفوف الخلفية، بعيدا عن برق الفلاشات. قال في سره: "كلو من المرة النكد دي، نقتها أكتر منها" ثم شكر الله على نعمة "الجماعة".

"والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته"، قال الرئيس وقام مبتسما، عندها هب صاحبنا من مقعده الخلفي مسرعا يجرجر الشبشب ويلعن الموكيت، فقد حانت ساعة "الجد". أسرع إلى المقدمة فصافح نافع بحرارة لم يلاحظها الأخير، ومنه جرى بيده الممدودة إلى الترابي، "شيخ حسن... السلام عليكم"، ثم استدار نحو غازي "يا دكتور.. يا دكتور"! "ده شيخ علي؟" قال بصوت عال وربت بيده على كتف الرجل المشغول عنه. أدار بصره كرة أخرى حول الجلاليب تهفهف من حوله فمر على ود الصادق ثم ود الميرغني، "يا سعادتك.."، "يا مولانا.." ثم قفل راجعا خطوة والثانية ليصطدم بظهر منصور خالد، "يا دكتور..حصل لينا الشرف والله". نادى بكري القريب منه "سعادتو.. ما باركنا ليك، كنت مسافر والله، أول ما رجعت ضربت لي مدير مكتبك، انت غيرت النمرة ولا شنو؟" أكمل دورة أخرى من السلام، جلاليب الدرجة الثانية والثالثة، ثم استعدل عمته. أخرج السمارت فون والمفتاح من الجيب العميق، ثم شد الخطوات نحو الباب بهمة رئاسية. رفع يده بالتحية وهو يعبر شباب الحراسة، "سلام عليكم يا أخوانا، ساهروا بيكم الجماعة ديل الليلة.. قلت ليكم، كورة مانشستر انتهت كم بالله؟"    

Rift Valley Institute Field Courses 2014

The Rift Valley Institute's field courses on Sudan and South Sudan, the Horn of Africa, and the Great Lakes take place from May to July 2014. Now in their eleventh year, the courses provide a basis for understanding current political and developmental challenges in the region. They are taught by teams of leading specialists—from the region and beyond–and offer a unique opportunity to spend time with an outstanding group of specialists, away from routine distractions. RVI courses are designed for policy-makers, diplomats, investors, development workers, researchers, activists and journalists—for new arrivals in the region and those already working there who wish to deepen their knowledge. A dawn-to-dusk programme of seminars, lectures, group discussions and special events examines the key social, environmental, political and cultural features of each of the three sub-regions.

Horn of Africa Course

31 May - 6 June 2014

The 2014 Horn of Africa Course, held in Kenya from 31 May to 6 June, will cover Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Somaliland, Puntland, and northern Kenya. The course offers a multi-disciplinary examination of the crises afflicting the Horn and explores continuity and change under new political leadership at the national and sub-national level across the region. 

Sudan and South Sudan Course

14 - 20 June 2014

The Sudan and South Sudan Course will also be held in Kenya, from 14 to 20 June. New rebellions and ongoing civil war in both the Sudans have put social and economic development in jeopardy. Understanding the history of state formation and conflict in the two countries is more important than ever. The course addresses the challenge of working in this complex, fluid environment, linking analysis of current events to contextual understanding of history, politics, war, society and economy. 

Great Lakes Course

28 June - 4 July 2014

The Great Lakes Course Course, held in Burundi from 28 June to 4 July, will cover Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The Director of Studies is Jason Stearns. The 2014 course will examine the ongoing violence in the Kivus in the wake of the defeat of the M23 rebel group, and the prospects of institutional reform in the DRC as the country prepares for local elections. In Burundi, it will examine the challenges facing the country in the run-up to the 2015 elections. For Rwanda, the focus will be on the tensions between political liberalization and the top-down approach to economic and social development. The course is in English and French with simultaneous translation.

To apply online—and to obtain further information on courses, staff, and locations—please visit www.riftvalley.net/key-projects/courses and download the 2014 Field Course Prospectus. Applications are considered in order of receipt. Places are limited. You can apply here.

Accounts of previous years’ courses can be found here, and testimonials from previous course participants can be read here. In the coming months the RVI will be sending out updates on the courses, including on teaching staff and locations. In order to receive these, please subscribe to the RVI mailing list. You can also follow the Institute on Twitter and Facebook.

The RVI Nairobi Forum - South Sudan: Is Peace Possible?

The crisis in South Sudan: swapping partners

When asked by the New York Time how he imagines the current crisis in South Sudan to end Jok Madut Jok, one of the country’s leading intellectuals, answered with obvious resignation referring to President Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar: “The two men will eventually sit down, resolve their issues, laugh for the cameras, and the thousands of civilians who have died will not be accounted for.” Jok might well be right, the question is rather when, or at the price of how many lives? Indeed, the South Sudanese negotiators from the two sides started talks about talks in the Ethiopian capital with keen hugs. The dead, alas, cannot share in the tokens of good will on display in Addis Ababa’s Sheraton. 

As things stand, two interlocking factors are likely to determine the timing of the awaited respite: the balance of military power on the battlefields between the two men and the nature and extent of regional involvement in the South Sudanese theatre of war, with the second factor probably overdetermining the first. In the record of old Sudan’s wars, of which the current conflict in independent South Sudan constitutes a continuity, as much as a break, there are no victors, only the dead, and the negotiators and their ‘peace’ agreements, and of course books, some good ones with ignored lessons, and many that lay or rather renew the ideological ground for new wars. 

Under the category ideology one should also consider media coverage of events in South Sudan. Ominously, mainstream Sudanese press and Western media, apart from some sane exceptions, shared the same outlook, namely the notion of atavistic drives devouring a country constituted of tribal hordes not peoples. Reports of the insurgency in southern Sudan always ended with the line that the war was between a Muslim Arab north and a Christian and animist African south. This time around, the standard wisdom was confrontation between the Dinka and the Nuer, or a variant thereof, usually the more qualified reminder that President Kiir is a Dinka and Riek Machar a Nuer, with the note that the Dinka constitute South Sudan’s largest ethnic group. ‘Quick descent’ from a power struggle between President Kiir and his former deputy to a civil war pitting the Dinka against the Nuer is then declared but left to the trusting consumer to fathom. Assuming the above reasoning to hold, the mystery is rather how is it at all possible that the Nuer and the Dinka are not at each other’s throats all the time, battle-keen as they are supposed to be. 

If the on-going insurgency in Sudan’s South Kordofan and the Blue Nile is a tangential off-shoot of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed between the Sudan government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M), unsettled business as it were, so is the current crisis in South Sudan. Liberal peace-making efforts at the time consciously divorced between the necessity of ending the war and the condition of restructuring state power to secure peace, termed rather euphemistically ‘democratic transformation’. The outcome was reproduction of the National Congress Party (NCP) autocracy in Khartoum and the implantation of its precarious double in Juba under banners of the SPLA/M turned into a ruling party, argument being that only those with the capacity to wage war deserved to dictate the terms of peace, and so they did. The contradiction, so dear to the ‘experts’, between the Arab Muslim north and the African Christian animist south was resolved by an international border of terribly poor resolution. The contradictions that sustained the war however, primary among them the capture of the state by “bourgeoisified bureaucratic elites” to use John Garang’s eerie terminology, adding the adjective militarised in the case of South Sudan to account for the legacy of the liberation struggle, as opposed to the rural mass of the population, were accepted as destiny if not actively encouraged to facilitate ‘peace’. Consider in that regard how the 2010 elections, the landmark event of ‘democratic transformation’ under the 2005 CPA, were internationally delivered to the NCP in northern Sudan and the SPLM in southern Sudan without even the grace of acknowledging their farcical nature aloud. Yasir Arman’s aborted presidential candidacy on a SPLM ticket was the dramatic entertainment offered to the indulgent, a non-event to square the ‘bi-partisan’ deal. A long-time Garangist, Yasir is yet to come to terms with the secession of South Sudan, his politics remain a hangover from the days of the big man. 

In northern Sudan, the 2010 elections proved the main catalyst for the renewed insurgency in South Kordofan, a count of votes, contested and corrupted, could on no account address a situation where a ‘national’ army was in a haste to do away with combatants still in command of an arsenal and territory. In southern Sudan, the now forgotten insurgency of George Athor who lost the bid for the gubernatorial post in Jonglei State when the SPLM endorsed the candidacy of Kuol Manyang Juuk was arguably a foretaste of how electoral politics operate when the ruling political party doubles as an army. Athor died in disputed circumstances in December 2011. Riek Machar, yesterday’s vice president and today’s rebel, claimed Athor was killed in a clash with a border patrol unit after crossing back into Equatoria following a trip to Rwanda. For enthusiasts of the Dinka-Nuer rivalry George Athor was a Padeng-Dinka. In terms of agreements, South Sudan had its own ‘protocols’ to add to the CPA, comparable to the rushed and ill-fated CPA protocols on the Three Areas, South Kordofan, the Blue Nile and Abyei, namely the 2006 Juba Declaration signed with the South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF) led by the late Paulino Matieb. An umbrella of militia formations comparable in size to the SPLA itself, the SSDF trace their evolution back to the 1978 Anya Nya II of Upper Nile but were born out of the 1997 Khartoum Peace Agreement signed with the South Sudan Independence Army/Movement (SSIA/M) of Riek Machar, the SPLA/M-United of Lam Akol, the Equatoria Defence Force (EDF), Kerubino Kawanyn Bol’s own SPLA/M and ‘other groups’.

The SSDF were arguably the SAF’s greatest asset in the war against the SPLA/M. Oil production in Western Upper Nile (aptly renamed Unity State) would not have been possible without Paulino Matieb’s soldiers, under subcontract of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) military intelligence. If South Kordofan and the Blue Nile were the SPLA/M’s south within the north the SSDF were the Khartoum government’s mobile north within the south. The CPA stipulated the dissolution of the SSDF, a prospect that John Garang probably considered in earnest but did not survive to test. Garang died in July 2005, and his successor Salva Kiir opted for absorption of the SSDF into the SPLA, a decision that found expression in the 8 January 2006 Juba Declaration. Accordingly, the ageing Matieb was appointed deputy commander of the SPLA, but “integration”, “unity” and “reconciliation”, the key words of the declaration, were ripped out of a military dictionary not a political one. Former SSDF commanders including Peter Gadet, Gordon Kong and others, kept the revolving doors of the SPLA busy in cycles of mutiny and pardon. In that regard, Riek Machar’s return to the “bush” as prince over old company spikes an established trend, so far as to plateau in Addis Ababa’s Sheraton. 

It should come as no surprise then that President Kiir turned to his CPA partner President Bashir for counsel with the oil arteries of the twin regimes at stake. President Bashir landed in Juba on Monday accompanied by the chiefs of his military-security cabal to pronounce that no forces opposed to the Juba government will be allowed to operate out of Sudan, and Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ali Karti claimed that Juba had asked for talks on deployment of a joint force to guard South Sudan’s oil fields. Military intelligence in Khartoum obviously has more to offer to counterparts in Juba than Kampala ever can. The rebellion in South Sudan comes at a time when the SAF is engaged in its widest counter-insurgency campaign in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile since the resumption of war in 2011, and offers Khartoum the opportunity to seal the security pact it always wished for, sanction to operate behind the lines of the SPLA/M in North Sudan and its allies in the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF). The pro-government press in Khartoum prepared public opinion for the shift from ‘friendly’ to ‘brotherly’ South Sudan with reports attributed to anonymous South Sudanese military experts that forces of the SRF were fighting alongside Riek Machar’s allies in Unity State. On a more composed note, officials maintained that Machar had recanted on his pledge not to disturb oil production. Ironically, it is Khartoum that is now invited to stabilise the SPLA/M regime in Juba, the Chinese to mediate between President Kiir and his former deputy, and Lam Akol who faces Machar’s delegates as Kiir’s negotiator. The Prendergastians must be aghast. In this world, say Omdurmani grandmothers, you might even get to witness your own mother’s bridal dance, if that’s any solace.

Suad Ibrahim Ahmed: “I am fighting”

Death robbed me of another ‘teacher’ this Sunday. Suad Ibrahim Ahmed, a veteran Sudanese communist, passed away in a Khartoum hospital in the early hours of 29 December at the age of 78. Born into a family of prestige and wealth, Suad chose the perilous path of the counter-effendi the moment she awoke to political consciousness as one of a few female students in Khartoum University in the late 1950s. Her father, Ibrahim Ahmed, was a distinguished politician of the Umma Party of a liberal mould and minister of finance in Abdalla Khalil’s cabinet. The daughter was raised in the shell of Khartoum’s grand and great, one she broke out of with the tool of mind. 

Suad Ibrahim Ahmed (1935 - 2013)
 photo credits Isam Hafeez

Talal Afifi, the man behind the Sudan Film Factory, introduced me to Suad. We visited her in her Khartoum (2) house, a history book by itself, for a video interview as part of a project to document the experiences of those distinguished Sudanese communists who lived through the 1971 purges and came out alive. Talal chose the title “We survived” for the series but it never saw completion, partially because of the stubborn resistance of many to speak about events they felt were still very much contemporary. It was in Suad’s house that the last meeting between the commanding officer of the 1971 communist coup Hashim al-Atta and the party chief Abd al-Khalig Mahjoub took place. Both men did not survive. Hashim was executed by firing squad in al-Shajara military base south of Khartoum and Abd al-Khalig died on the gallows of Cooper Prison in Khartoum North. Suad did survive, one of four women elected to the thirty three members Central Committee in the Communist Party’s historic 1967 general convention, next to Mahasin Abd al-Aal, Naima Babiker al-Rayah and Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim. I asked her how she landed in the communist bosom considering her background and education. She answered in the sharp tones of a militant: ‘The Origin of the Family’ referring to Engels’ book ‘The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State’. For many a feminist in Sudan, Suad was the woman to look up to, assertive, defiant and incorrigibly political. Alas, many of her admirers in recent years overlooked her politics in favour of her symbol. 

In her study, Suad had a desktop PC that she commanded with fingers severely disfigured by rheumatoid arthritis, one of several diseases she had to suffer in her later years. She was persistently in pain but brushed off sympathetic questions about her health with the answer: “I am fighting,” and a fighter she was. She was fired from government service in the statistics bureau in the early 1960s for opposing the flooding of Halfa and the eviction of its residents to make way for the construction of the Higher Dam in Egypt. The government of Ibrahim Abboud probably regretted the move, since it prompted Suad to become a full time journalist for the ‘The Voice of Women’, the surgically subversive publication of the Sudanese Women Union at the time. A Nubian herself, Suad continued to champion the cause of her people in the face of dams and displacement till her last breath, a legacy that won her the name “Mother of the Nubians”. 

Unlike many fellow Sudanese communists, Suad had the indispensable skill of making and managing money judiciously, capacities that she possibly acquired from her father, and also her husband, the late Hamid al-Ansari, one of a handful of Sudanese businessmen who associated with the Communist Party and probably funded it in its heydays. Hamid is remembered for his brave refusal to testify against Abd al-Khalig Mahjoub in the military tribunals set up by the revenge-thirsty Nimeiry following the defeat of the 1971 coup as bullets burst through the bodies of the accused officers within hearing distance. Suad spent money on the causes she believed in, a lot of it. She set up a centre to teach threatened Nubian languages in Cairo in the 1990s and continued to support initiatives and individuals in Sudan whenever need arose. Suad the Nubian will be missed by many; others will miss the feminist; some the communist. I will miss that invincible spirit, the emaciated white-haired woman seated in her study, her twisted swollen aching fingers defiantly tipping messages of solidarity letter by letter, each typo requiring excruciatingly painful repetition.

Bahnas died

Mohamed Bahnas, a dear friend, talented painter, poet and musician, froze to death this week on Cairo's streets, homeless, and isolated but from the clutter of contradictions that kept his mind ever alert. Born in Omdurman in 1972, Bahnas found refuge in artistic expression from an early age. The profession he sought most though was life itself. He chased it in the 'araki' quarters of Khartoum, the mosques of Omdurman, the conversations of the tired intellectuals of the capital, the glare of Paris and Berlin, in the company of friends and the faces of strangers. 

In the meantime, he painted profusely, wrote fresh poetry in a language made from the chatter of the streets turned into eloquent verse with a purpose, he cursed, made friends and enemies, disgusted many, and broke a few hearts. A 'malamati' of his age, Bahnas cycled restlessly between beliefs, convictions and fragmentary philosophical notions without ever finding a mental home as it were.

The last time I saw Bahnas was in December 2012. He sat at a distance from the loud crowd of the Goethe Institut's cafeteria in Khartoum drawing a self-portrait. We exchanged the usual greetings and then drifted into a full-blown discussion of 'Islamic' morality. He had just returned from a lengthy 'khalwa' committed to a form of mystical belief that he could not well explain. He corrected his sentences as he spoke unsatisfied with the shadows cast by his words, dropping one for a close synonym as he explored clarity in vain. Failing to reach consensus we exhanged jokes, laughed and drank the habitual teas of Khartoum's evenings as old friends just do. All the while he added a line and another to his drawing. 

The self-portrait I did not see completed, but I suppose he has just delivered his last drawing to the world, his own body flung on a Cairo street, resting forever in the cold of night. I have only words to mourn you ya my friends, farwell.

Sudan’s NCP: reshuffle and recharge

After months of wrangling within the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), the government declared its greatest ‘makeover’ since the split with Hassan al-Turabi in 1998/1999. Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, the long-serving First Vice President, in office since 1998 with an interlude as Vice President during the period of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), 2005 – 2011, was replaced by President Bashir’s confidante Bakri Hassan Salih, the only remaining member of the cohort of officers who led the 1989 coup in the circle of power. Hasabu Mohamed Abd al-Rahman, a native of South Darfur who served as commissioner of the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC) during the height of the Darfur conflict and lately as Minister of Federal Rule, took over as Vice President from al-Haj Adam Yusif. Nafie Ali Nafie, the NCP strongman and assistant of President Bashir, lost his post to Ibrahim Ghandoor, and a majority of cabinet ministers including NCP stalwarts who had long recycled in the cabinet like Awad al-Jaz, Abd al-Haleem Ismail al-Mutaafi and Amin Hassan Omer were replaced by second-tier officials mostly promoted from administrative positions in the same ministries or called in from the states. Notably, the last remaining negotiators of the CPA and cooperation agreements with South Sudan, Idris Mohamed Abd al-Gadir and Mohamed Mukhtar Hussein, both state ministers, vacated their positions for new appointees. Likewise, the relatively younger al-Fatih Izz al-Din assumed the position of speaker of parliament instead of Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir who had held the post since 2001. Issa Bushra, the departing Minister of Science and Education was named as deputy speaker instead of Hajo Gasm al-Seed. Three prominent ministers though maintained their posts, Abd al-Raheem Mohamed Hussein in defense, Ali Karti in foreign affairs, and Mohamed Bushara Dousa in justice. Hussein has long been a target of severe criticism even within the NCP and in the officer corps of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) but continues to enjoy President Bashir’s confidence comparably only to the new First Vice President Bakri Hassan Salih. Hussein, like the President is indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes committed in Darfur.

The perception that the reshuffle marked the strengthening of the grip of the military over power at the expense of the civilian faction of the regime seems overrated since the two military figures in the inner circle of power, Bakri Hassan Salih and Abd al-Raheem Mohamed Hussein, never lacked influence over decision-making, and certainly always had the trust of the President. Rather, the reshuffle, particularly when considering appointments at the level of state ministers, is suggestive of a shift from the ‘old guard’ of the historic Islamic Movement to cadres groomed under the reign of the NCP, a demand that has been repeatedly voiced within the party. Nevertheless, the promotion of Bakri Hassan Salih to First Vice President, preceded by his recent appointment in the leadership council of the NCP and the higher leadership of the NCP-loyal Islamic Movement lends credence to the idea that he might be picked as President Bashir’s successor. Such a transfer of power, although only a speculation, would secure an exit for President Bashir without the risk of delivery to the ICC. 

While the opposition including Ghazi al-Attabani’s new ‘Reform Now Movement’ dismissed the reshuffle as a cosmetic measure and reiterated the demand of a ‘transitional government’ and the resignation of President Bashir himself, the government overhaul is likely to be welcomed by the rank of file of the NCP, particularly that it stresses the possibility of upward mobility for home-grown loyal cadres who do not compare in prestige and standing with the ‘old guard’, distinguished by their foreign doctorates and international exposure. This regenerative ability, limited as it might be, challenges the opposition parties on a level that the parties would probably wish to ignore, namely the long reign of their own leaders. That said, the response of the mainstream opposition was generally one of bewilderment, much like the reaction to the coup in 1989 mythologised by Tayeb Salih’s question in an Op-Ed published in the Saudi magazine al-Majalla in the early nineties “Where did they come from?” 

The opposition simply had no idea who these new ministers were. In the press, only al-Intibaha’s al-Sadiq al-Rizeigy offered biographical profiles of the new statesmen. Rizeigy hit a nail on the head with the remark that the calculus of rule in Sudan had changed from the domination of the urban ‘effendiya’ proper, the types picked by the late Nimeiry over the main evening news bulletin from the power-spoiled Khartoum University staff, to the ambitious elites of rural Sudan. In the style of the Justice and Equality Movement’s Black Book, Rizeigy noted the increased share of Darfur, Kordofan, eastern Sudan and Gezira in the central government at the expense of the ‘traditional’ excess allotted to the River Nile and the Northern region. Salah Wansi, Rizeigy explains, lived most of his life in Kadugli and other towns of Kordofan. Simeih, the Minister of Industry, hails from South Darfur. The new Minister of Interior, Abd al-Wahid Yusif, comes from tiny Ghibeish in West Kordofan, Yasir Yusif, the new State Minister of Media, is a Gedaref lad and Farah Mustafa, the new Minister of Federal Rule, calls the eastern Jebel Marra home. From Darfur also are the state ministers Fadul Abdalla Fadul and al-Sadiq Mohamed Ali, the first at the Presidency and the second at the Ministry of Labour. Mutaz Musa, the new Minister of Electricity and Water Resources who displaced Osama Abdalla, considered a favourite of President Bashir, and Ahmed Mohamed Sadiq al-Karuri who replaced Kamal Abd al-Latif as Minister of Mining, both served under Osama Abdalla in the Dams Implementation Unit. 

The NCP, expectedly, celebrated the reshuffle as an unprecedented and bold undertaking with no comparison in the Middle East and Africa, undeterred by the obvious fact that the overhaul also demonstrated the centralisation of power in the hands of President Bashir and the military officers at his side with the exit of all potential competitors from the scene. It must be noted that Taha, Nafie, al-Jaz and other prominent NCP seniors continue to hold seats in parliament as well as positions in the leadership council of the NCP. The new deputy chairman of the NCP, Ibrahim Ghandoor, spoke optimistically of a new era of dialogue with the opposition, stressing the government’s readiness to resume negotiations with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement in North Sudan (SPLA/M-N), a new push for peace talks with the Darfur armed movements, and the NCP’s willingness to settle for a consensual elections law to govern the 2015 vote. Commentary in the Sudanese media focused on the ability of the new cabinet to tackle the country’s economic crisis as a condition for the success of the change agenda. In any case, the last time the government underwent such a makeover, following Turabi’s ouster, the CPA followed. It remains to be seen what concessions President Bashir and the officers at his side are ready to make this time to secure the reign of a regime that has arguably just undergone its third major mutation, the first being Turabi’s breakaway and the second the CPA and the secession of South Sudan. Nafie Ali Nafie expressed the ambitions at play in a speech to the NCP lawyers bloc bracing for elections of the bar association with Ibrahim Ghandoor, the man who just assumed his positions, at his side. Ingaz (the Salvation regime) has just reset its mileage to zero and started a new cycle, and will do so repeatedly till Azrael (the Archangel of Death) calls for the Apocalypse, he boasted. Nafie’s florid language could not dispel the ‘fatigue’ that has eclipsed over an Ingaz that has surrendered its ideological grit and organisational advantage, born of the experiences of the Islamist vanguard, to rely solely on the secular calculations of patronage and accommodation tied obviously to the promise of ‘developmental’ reward. Nafie’s script, it seems, was copied from the learning materials of the Communist Party of China, the NCP’s main interlocutor and model in party organisation. Unlike the Chinese rulers though, the NCP is yet to invent a retirement scheme for the Bringi (the number one), decorated with his ICC diploma. President Bashir who has effectively outmanoeuvred both Turabi and Taha, the sheikh and his captain, is the indispensable liability of the regime, Azrael indeed!