Thousands of Sudanese are demonstrating for the third day in front of the Republican Palace in Khartoum, Sudan. -EPA PIC
Thousands of Sudanese are demonstrating for the third day in front of the Republican Palace in Khartoum, Sudan. -EPA PIC

SUDAN is a rain-poor country, but of late it has been a democracy-rich one. Or as one recent BBC report hints, way too rich in democracy.

The British broadcaster is not wrong. Since the overthrow of former president Omar al-Bashir in 2019 after eight months of protests, everyone wants to run this fascinating African country. Well, close to everyone.

Although Sudan is being governed by the Sovereign Council (SC) made up of the military and the civilian Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), other groups outside the ruling coalition want a say, too.

As they say, too much of anything, even democracy, can be bad. Sudan is showing the symptoms of such an oversupply. For one, Khartoum has been stuck in a transition mode for more than two years, an undesirable position to be in for a nation in economic crisis.

The bread queues which caused the coup are still there as wheat shortages continue. If promises are kept, an election will be held next year, but recent protests by some Sudanese aligned with the army — there was one on Saturday — are calling on it to get rid of the FFC. And the civilian prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, isn't keeping quiet.

According to a BBC report, Hamdok took to the airwaves on Friday talking of divisions within the civilian and military camps. Is a coup in the making? One nearly did recently.

Bashir himself was a victim of one. If media reports are right, the former president, who ruled Sudan for 30 years, wasn't initially the target of the coup which started in December 2018. It was all about food on the table.

But when Bashir, faced with American sanctions and falling oil revenue, removed bread and fuel subsidies, the protesters pushed the army to overthrow him.

And the army was only too happy to please. For sure, Bashir isn't faultless, but he had some powerful enemies in the West, especially the United States.

For years the West was trying to get the International Criminal Court to try him for war crimes, and now the interim government has agreed to do its bidding at a cost to Sudan.

The US promised to remove Sudan from its list of terrorism states if the interim government normalised relations with the Zionist regime of Israel.

Sudan did normalise like a few Arab countries, thus sanctioning the settler colonisation of Palestine and the Zionists' dehumanisation of Palestinians. Whether or not Bashir is guilty as alleged, we leave it to the ICC.

But if ICC's business is justice as it claims it is, then The Hague court must try all war criminals without exception. It is a pity the interim government didn't make it a condition that the ICC try Western leaders who are alleged to have committed war crimes for the surrender of Bashir.

Granted, Sudan's economic crisis isn't one which can be solved in a week or a month. It is made worse by two other factors. Firstly, when South Sudan seceded in 2011, much of the country's oil revenue was lost. Secondly, Covid-19 made a bad economic situation worse. Spiking prices of basic foods, rising unemployment and falling exports are some of the adverse effects of the pandemic. Squabbling over seats in the SC isn't helping. The more energy spent in dissent, the less of it will be left for solutions. Fragmentation never took any country forward.