SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: Council On Foreign Relations – Sudan’s Fragile Transition

30/7/19: Council On Foreign Relations – Sudan’s Fragile Transition, by Michelle Gavin

 Michelle Gavin, a senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, calls for the US to commit “real resources” towards “compelling” progress on Sudan’s democratic transition, arguing that lasting Sudanese stability requires structural reform and response to popular demands for a new basis of political legitimacy.

 Gavin argues that the international community must incentivise a Sudanese democratic transition by making a Sudanese economic lifeline contingent upon democratic progress, noting that the security service elites who ousted former president Omar Al Bashir were motivated to do so by his inability to serve their economic interests.

 Gavin cites the Saudi-Emirati tolerance of repression to conclude that the US should not rely on Saudi-Emirati money to incentivise democratic progress.