Al-Bashir is ready to lead Sudan as democratically elected president for a third term in office, notes Gamal Nkrumah, but will others follow? Every now and then Sudanese politics undergoes a dramatic shift. Something dramatic is happening in Sudan at the moment and the country will never be the same again. Sudan stands a real chance not to remain a deeply divided and dysfunctional society bedeviled by apocalyptic predictions. The fears of gainsayers have been confounded. Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir is expected to demonstrate that his government remains responsive to the democratically expressed wishes of the Sudanese people. On Tuesday, Chad accused Sudan of launching a military offensive on its territory, barely two days after the signing of a peace and reconciliation agreement between the two countries in Doha. For pessimists this week's eruption of violence in eastern Chad purportedly prompted by Sudanese aggression is the latest chapter in Sudan's long slide towards disaster. This latest bout of fighting has unhappy echoes of the war that broke out between the two countries in 2004-06 and more recently last year. The focus of international attention was on the Chadian-Sudanese Agreement signed in Doha. Chad has powerful Western backers, most notably France, the country's former colonial master. "We are following with great concern the situation in eastern Chad," the French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier told reporters in Paris. France is a major participant -- with an estimated 800 troops -- in the United Nations Mission in Chad (MINURCAT), which took over from EUFOR, the European Union peacekeeping force stationed in Chad until March this year. France also has a separate detachment of 1,500 troops in the so-called Epervier (Sparrowhawk) force it maintains in Chad. There is no hiding the truth that Sudan faces tremendously complex problems. It is easy to despair of the dire situation in Sudan. If it is to retain the faith of its citizens, the Sudanese government must maintain the standards spelt out in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005 by the then head of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the late John Garang, and President Al-Bashir. The SPLA is no more. It has been officially disbanded, and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) has become a fully-fledged political party with no armed wing to boast of. The SPLM is to this day influenced by Garang's heady ideological cocktail of socialism and southern Sudanese nationalism. Today, however, it strives to create a southern Sudanese bourgeoisie under southern Sudanese empowerment policies. Top jobs are reserved for SPLM loyalists, mainly from the Dinka ethnic group, by far southern Sudan's largest. Politicians in Khartoum, human rights activists, and tribal leaders representing non-Dinka ethnic groups in southern Sudan argue that the empowerment policies are seriously flawed. They are bitterly critical of the SPLM leadership and warn that the paranoid atmosphere bodes ill. The social improvements initiated by the SPLM are contemptuously brushed aside. Worse, there has been a pessimistic premonition that Sudan is doomed and will crack up very soon. It is against this melodramatic backdrop that the disbanding of the SPLA signals a new beginning for the country as a whole. The SPLM will now prove that power is not concentrated with the Dinka people. The party will not permit its leaders to tighten their stranglehold on southern Sudan for myopic political ends. The decommissioning of the SPLA merits a louder fanfare than it has enjoyed in these momentous times. The SPLM has effectively become a national party that is not restricted to southern Sudan. The SPLM is poised to become a party of all the disadvantaged and marginalised peoples of Sudan. Is this then the end of dictatorship? In a widely publicised interview on the pan-Arab satellite television channel Al-Jazeera, Al-Bashir conceded that he prefers the designation field marshall to president. "I am a military man. I am proud of the role played by the Sudanese Armed Forces in Sudanese politics, and I am profoundly devoted to the accolade field marshall." At this particular historical juncture, a flurry of American diplomatic activity concerning Sudan comes into play. Washington has in the past been bitterly critical of Sudan, and the anti-Sudan media hype in the US has not subsided. Still, John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, headed the first congressional delegation to visit Sudan since US President Barack Obama took office in January this year. By and large, Kerry's three-day trip to Sudan was productive. The hullabaloo concerning the International Criminal Court indictment of President Al-Bashir was largely ignored during Kerry's visit to Sudan. "I found a government that is far more prepared to move on other issues that are of importance to the US, and I think it is important for us to deal with those officials," Kerry noted. "And, we will have to work around and deal with the complications of the ICC," he added. The US, like Sudan, is not a member of the ICC. Kerry spoke about the dangers of what he termed the "low- intensity conflict" between Sudan and some of its neighbours, most notably Chad. The top law-maker met with the most powerful and politically influential figures in the Sudanese regime including Nafie Ali Nafie, special presidential adviser to President Al-Bashir and former Sudanese National Security chief. Kerry also conferred with Second Vice-President Ali Othman Taha before he flew off to Darfur to inspect humanitarian conditions in the war- torn westernmost Sudanese province. "From elections to the referendum to various very specific obligations regarding unresolved issues -- borders, wealth-sharing, and other such things. Personally, I am convinced that the CPA is the foundation on which to build the resolution of a lot of issues here in Sudan," Kerry told his hosts in Khartoum. Other US officials concurred with Kerry. "The US and Sudan want to be partners, and so we are looking for opportunities for us to build a stronger bilateral relationship," Air Force Major General Scott Gration, Obama's chief envoy to Sudan, explained during his recent visit to the country. Anti-Sudan activist John Prendergast has long argued that the villain of the piece is President Al-Bashir. Prendergast and his ilk claim that even as the marginalised Sudanese people are starving to death, Sudanese diplomats are treating political unrest as signs of rebellion. Today, many influential politicians in Washington applaud Sudan's efforts towards democratisation. The move -- a simultaneous thwarting and reinvesting of the opposition's aspirations -- is characteristic of the Sudanese regime as a whole. The ruling clique in Khartoum has failed to address the concerns of the marginalised peoples of Sudan. Yet, the successive Sudanese political crises have made such changes politically possible. More than 50 political parties have registered in preparation for the general elections scheduled to take place next year. The Sudanese people are gearing up for an exciting election, for proper popular participation in the decision-making process. The SPLM's drive towards self-improvement, on the other hand, is indefatigable. And, it grows considerably more compelling as it progresses. The leaders of the SPLM must demonstrate to their constituency that a united Sudan is better placed than a divided country to respond to the economic and social development crises. If they fail to convince their southern constituency of the pivotal importance of keeping Sudan intact, then the chances of permanent peace are in danger of being jeopardised. If they fail, it will be a tragic parody of misdirection. Southern Sudan's experiment under the CPA stipulations and SPLM government could yet turn out differently. Finally, there is no hiding the truth that the SPLM must maintain its standards. Sudan's leaders, northern and southern, must find the will and the foresight to commit to the founding ideals. The SPLM leaders have to contend with the conflicting objectives of catering to the disgruntled southern Sudanese voters and the drive to attract disadvantaged northerners at the risk of alienating southerners. How to split the sacrifice between the two will be the focus of fierce Sudanese interest-group politics over the next months.
