Sudanese President Al-Bashir's inauguration don't mean a thing if it ain't got that bling, says Gamal Nkrumah Five African heads of state -- four presidents and Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi -- attended the swearing- in ceremony of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir in Khartoum this week. The presidents were Chad's Idris Deby, Djibouti's Ismail Guelleh, Malawi's Bingu wa Mutharika, and Mauritania's Mohamed Ould Abdel-Aziz, highlighting widespread official African support for the Sudanese leader in spite of the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) indicting Al-Bashir. The Sudanese president was in a solemn mood, even though a chorus of his supporters chanted Allah Akbar in unison during the inauguration ceremony, a signal that his power base of militant Islamists is as strong as ever at home and that so far there is no sign that he will succumb to secularist temptations. Conspicuously absent at last week's ceremony in Khartoum was Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and other North African and Middle Eastern leaders. Gaddafi was miffed when Chadian President Deby imprisoned his onetime ally Ibrahim Khalil, the leader of the largest Darfur armed opposition faction, the Justice and Equality Movement, that signed a peace deal with Al-Bashir in Qatar recently. Khalil, a protégé of Gaddafi, was arrested when a plane he was boarding landed in the Chadian capital Ndjamena last week in a move intended to curry favour with Al-Bashir and the Sudanese authorities. The irony is that all the leaders who congregated in Khartoum for the inauguration of Al-Bashir seemed intent on making the most of their meeting in terms of political capital. Djibouti's President Guelleh recently announced that he intends to run for a third six-year term in office "if it is God's will", stressed the leader of the tiny Muslim enclave on the Red Sea. His second mandate expires in April 2011. Djibouti houses France's largest military (air and naval) base in Africa. It also has one of the largest US naval bases on the African continent. Malawi's Mutharika, too, hit the headlines in May, when international pop star Madonna persuaded him to pardon a Malawian gay couple sentenced to 14 years in prison with hard labour. Mauritania and Sudan (two predominantly Muslim nations ruled by governments with an Islamist ideological orientation) have recently signed a joint telecommunications venture (Chinguittel) to facilitate regular exchanges of missions between Islamist theologians and jurists. Low-ranking officials on the whole represented Western governments. The United States decided as a last resort to be represented at Al-Bashir's inauguration by a consular official at its embassy in Khartoum. Other Western nations were either not represented at all or were represented by low-ranking diplomats. Two senior African diplomats, too, represented the United Nations at Al-Bashir's inauguration -- Haile Menkerios, head of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), and Ibrahim Gambari, the seasoned Nigerian joint head of the African Union-UN Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). The UN perhaps is mindful that Al-Bashir has become a symbolic focus for the Sudanese public's frustration with outside interference in domestic affairs, and that they are equally disenchanted with the traditional political class. So what does the inauguration ceremony say about Sudan's new political dispensation? The pomp and circumstance are a telling sign. The delegates from visiting African countries warmly welcomed Southern Sudanese President Salva Kiir, who also doubles as Sudan's vice-president. French reservations about Al-Bashir's democratic credentials were revealed this week in Paris's disenchantment with the Chadian-Sudanese rapprochement. Chad, like Sudan, suffered a long and tortuous civil war pitting Chad's southerners -- predominantly Christian -- against the Muslim northerners who held a monopoly of political power for much of Chad's post-independence history. France, the colonial master of Chad, refused to invite Sudanese President Al-Bashir for the Franco-African summit in the French Mediterranean city of Nice on the grounds that he is persona non-grata. Such Western attitudes towards Sudan sharply contrast with the fraternal ties that bound the Sudanese government with its counterparts in Africa. Deby, in contrast, was welcomed with open arms by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Western powers cannot ignore the Sudanese government's popularity in certain quarters of Africa. Al-Bashir is a symbol of defiance. For Sudan's sake things must improve from here. Sudan, like many of its African neighbours, desperately needs a dramatic reversal in its political and economic fortunes. African politicians are blamed for their domestic failures, and Al-Bashir and his African presidential visitors are being derided for their inability to make a real difference in their people's lives in spite of winning landslide victories at the polls and consequently more terms in office. They share a certain camaraderie. Yet there are certain recently-elected politicians in Africa who have been able to buck this sorry trend. Most of these, without mentioning names, did not show up in Khartoum for Al-Bashir's swearing-in ceremony. In his inaugural speech, Al-Bashir stressed that foreign investment is flowing to more selective sectors of the Sudanese economy. He was optimistic about the prospects of the Sudanese economy fuelled by oil, peace and stability. Nevertheless, international human rights organisations remain sceptical about the prospects for real political reforms in Sudan claiming the country is tightly controlled by a security cabal. His detractors contend that Al-Bashir's bid to hang on to power by fair or foul means will inevitably result in the disintegration of the country with the collapse of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed between Al-Bashir's ruling National Congress Party and the southern- based Sudan People's Liberation Movement in 2005. The CPA stipulates southern national self-determination in a referendum scheduled for January 2011. If the southern Sudanese remain politically disgruntled with Sudan's political system, then secession and most likely war over oil wealth will ensue. Al-Bashir needs to try to reconfigure himself as someone tackling the challenges plaguing his nation head on. If he does not, all hell will be let loose. "He stays a wanted war criminal. The arrest warrant of the ICC could have positive side effects in marginalising President Al-Bashir, but this is only going to happen if it receives backing from the international community," Georgette Gagnon, a top Human Rights Watch officer, contended. The question now is whether Al-Bashir and his ruling party are willing to accept constructive engagement with Sudanese opposition forces and with its foes abroad. Such a détente is the political bling that will get Sudan into full swing.
