SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: Conversation – Sudan coup: years of instability have made the army key power brokers
History professor at Durham University Justin Willis, argues that colonialism “helps explain the military’s appetite for political power,” as “power came through the gun”, leaving generations of soldiers believing they are the ultimate guardians of Sudan.
Willis also argues that colonial rule produced a centralised state with power focused around Khartoum, leading Sudan’s political elite to view control of the state as a route to wealth, with civilian leaders during their brief periods of rule seeking power by mobilising regional or sectarian sentiments and localising patronage politics.
In tandem with Sudan’s economic dependence on cotton and wealth gap between the centre and peripheries, civilian politicians were unable to solve Sudan’s problems, giving the soldiers “a ready excuse for repeated interventions,” with the military’s prolonged leadership facilitating more state control, allowing it to expand its patronage economy and acquire its own industries and investments, in a shadow economy beyond any scrutiny.