DEMOCRATIZATION PROCESS
It has been known that the most of the period since independence in 1956 is military-dominated. This is because more than three-fourths of the total independence period, around 35 out of 45 years was under the domination of three military rulers, which are the Abboud regime (1958-1964), the Nimeiri regime (1969-1985) and the Bashir regime (1989).
Based on overall performance measured by macro-economic fundamentals, namely, growth rate, savings and investment rates, balance of payments, foreign exchange reserves, inflation and unemployment, the decade of 1980s seems to be the worst. While the performance during the initial two decades after independence in the mid-1950s to the mid 1970s was not as worse as the 1980s, and the decade of the 1990s started showing signs of improvements, in general. With this in mind, we will now analyze how this macro-performance being measured in the most pragmatic sense of fulfilling both social rights (health and education) and economic rights (real purchasing power) has implications for achieving economic democracy proxied by socio-economic rights (SER) and political democracy proxied by civil-political rights (CPR). Socio-economic rights (SER) determines the rights of any individual to basic needs together with the access to minimum level of health, education, shelter and basic public utilities, while civil-political rights (CPR) includes the rights to live in a civil society concomitant with the rights to exercise civil and political rights in terms of either selecting or rejecting a particular regime to rule. Therefore, by the criteria of overall democracy, all governments can be classified according to the degree of democracy in terms of participation, competition and contestation allowed in so far as the SER and CPR are concerned. Heritage Foundation postulates that economic freedom promotes economic prosperity which, in turn, creates an appropriate environment for a civil society capable of ensuring a sustainable political democracy. The relationship between regime type measured by the degree of democracy and economic growth being promoted by economic freedom is not unique. The success of the East Asian tigers might suggest that the autocratic or semi-authoritarian governments may enjoy the dual benefits, which are the insulating the state decision-making authority from the pressure groups, and also the introducing basic reforms warranted by rapid economic growth.
Based on the score of democraticness (SD), the average values of the coefficients of SD for Sudan at 56 for the whole of the 1960s and 68 for the 1970s compare much favourably with a number of other oil-rich or better-off West Asian and North African countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Nigeria, Jordan, Iran, Libya and Egypt. The index of higher economic freedom is expected to explain the higher level of human development through higher economic growth. But based on the findings of the Freedom House Survey (1998-99) and Index of Economic Freedom, the average annual growth in per capita GNP for 1996-97 does not seem to be associated with the human development index (HDI) of the corresponding period.
The better growth of Sudan during the mid-1990s could not also be immediately translated into better performance in human development which requires a long time to materialize. This may be because the HDI being a very complex variable is the resultant effect of so many other socio-economic factors such as access to education, health and real per capita income that must have been in operation for quite some time. If physical quality of life index (PQLI) is used as a proxy for development, the development or Growth-Democracy-freedom and human rights associations particularly in the mid-1980s, the post-Nimeiri regimes appear quite interesting.
The obvious question now arises as to why the authoritarian-cum-military dominated regimes could achieve in terms of higher human development in South East Asia, but could not be achieved by similar type of either authoritarian or class-biased democratic regimes in the Sudan. The essential ingredients such as personal and political freedom, social and economic justice, respect for human rights, equality of citizens before the law, and etc were never given due importance, even by the short-lived three civilian-dominated regimes for 10 years during 1956-58, 1964-69 and 1985-89 periods.
In 30 years of independence (1956-1985), there have been civil wars for 23 years, three military coups, two military uprisings and three civilian sectarian multi-party coalition governments. The primary cause of the prolonged civil wars and of the instability and sufferings of the Sudanese particularly in the South has been Khartoum’s sectarian rule and the failure to evolve a government based on overall national consensus. The failure of the leadership to establish a level of democracy acceptable to all the Sudanese in general and the Arab Muslim-dominated northerners in particular, lies in its class-biased nature. Most of the law-makers of the central council members come from the so-called privileged or intermediate class.
The political affiliation of the members of parliament after 1965 elections suggests the dominance of the Umma Party (UP) with 44% followed by the National Unionist Party (NUP) with 31%, Independents 14% and the rest 11% shared by the Communist Party, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Islamic Charter Front (ICF). In the 1968 election, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) replaced the UP with 46% followed by 33% by the three factions of UP and little less than 5% by the Southern Front. The remaining 16% went to UP, ICF, Independents and others. In both elections, the dominance of the Islamic-oriented party (UP) became quite evident. This predominance of the UP in the Constituent Assembly remains even in the first election held in 1958 immediately after independence. It implies that twin goals of Arabization and Islamization that lie behind the North-South conflict since the Pre-independence period would dominate regardless of the type of the regimes ruling Sudan in the foreseeable future.

PROSPECTS FOR DEMOCRACY
The establishment of strong democratic institutions and processes in Sudan will be a key prerequisite for peace in Darfur and the South. By setting forth a timetable for elections, the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement seeks to give Sudanese citizens significantly more control in how their country is governed. However, the CPA election clock is ticking and neither the institutional foundations nor the requisite electoral processes are in place. These electoral processes in the context of the implementation of the CPA provide Sudan’s best hope for peace – a political transformation through democracy.
The NCP-SPLM partnership for the CPA stands at a critical juncture. The NCP sees the 2009 elections as its route to internal and international legitimacy and is hoping that problems with the census and elections can be pinned on others (the SPLM, the Darfurians). Both parties have failed to find a compromise to the Abyei situation. The NCP strategy for the elections is to organize politically in the central regions of the North, expecting to use its money and organization to win on the basis of pre-election agreements with other Northern parties, and to utilize security methods to control elections in the peripheral areas including Darfur and the South, where necessary postponing elections altogether. The Northern parties are distrustful of both NCP and SPLM. The SPLM faces the challenge of organizing its own electoral strategy for the North.
The economic crisis of the last nine months is a major headache for the NCP. Economic hardship undermines the NCP’s popularity among its constituents and creates difficulties for its patronage-based mechanism for controlling the country. The NCP has moved to consolidate central control of state finances. The SPLM Convention scheduled for May will be a pivotal event for the future of the movement. The majority of the organizing committee is members of the pro-unity bloc and it is possible that they will use the occasion to push for the SPLM to embrace unity, which would involve sidelining those leaders who support separation.
The Darfur conflict is currently intractable with the parties pursuing military options. The GoS sees Chad and JEM as its major military adversary and is mounting offensives in Darfur and supporting the Chadian rebels for another offensive against N’djamena. Idriss Deby is fighting for his political life and has no interest in negotiations except as a tactical measure to buy regional and international support. Darfur cannot credibly become part of the national democratization process. The international mediation has exhausted its options. UNAMID is in an impossible situation. It is entrapped in the war on the ground in Darfur and Chad and the war of words between Khartoum and western capitals. While these two conflicts continue, UNAMID will remain a vulnerable hostage, draining international resources for very meagre benefit. A salvage plan for UNAMID would begin with making its existing ten battalions properly operational.
The NCP enjoys only minority support and would be reduced to one party among many in a free and fair election. But its preference is to contest and win elections and gain the legitimacy that will follow. Internationally, it will make the case that its elections are at minimum no less free and fair than those in countries such as Kenya and Nigeria. It is using its money, organizational capacity and control of the state to position itself at the centre of an exercise in limited democracy. Those running the election for the NCP believe in elections as a route to legitimacy. And most of the Northern opposition recognizes that there must be soft landing for the NCP—it must remain the major stakeholder in power—if there is to be any prospect for stability. The Iraq invasion has given incumbency a good name.
In the central areas of the north we can expect an election contested relatively fairly. In the central triangle around Khartoum, the NCP will spend money on infrastructure and services, seek support from local powerbrokers, and allow a fair election to proceed. (A memo two years ago written by the former finance minister Abdel Rahim Hamdi revealed that the NCP considered these the essential parts of Sudan.) All Sudanese know the broad outlines of electoral outcomes in these areas and would not accept blatant rigging. Hence the NCP strategy is to deal with this area through civil politics, including forming coalitions with other Northern parties or obtaining electoral pacts with them.
The SPLM possesses a reservoir of popular support across Northern Sudan, chiefly on account of its credentials as the voice of opposition to successive governments. The extraordinary turnout for John Garang’s return to Khartoum in July 2005 is testament to this. SPLM leaders in the North are confident that Sudanese will vote with their hearts, that it will gain the support of many in the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and Darfur and that many northern Arabs will vote for the SPLM confident that it is the best chance for unity. However the SPLM faces a challenge in creating an effective electoral organization in the North. The NCP calculation is that after the elections the SPLM will be one coalition partner among many in the North.
The NCP’s strategy for the peripheries is based on security management rather than civil politics. Its expectation is that the census and voters roll will be inaccurate, both for technical and political reasons, and that voting will follow local patterns of patronage. It would be content with no elections in many peripheral constituencies and will be ready to go along with proposals to postpone the census or elections in the South, provided it is reacting to others’ proposals and not making them itself.
All previous Sudanese national elections have been incomplete. In the past, Southern constituencies affected by war have simply not returned members to parliament. In 2009 it is more likely that representatives for any voided electoral seats would be appointed by the NCP and SPLM on the basis of CPA-based calculations. The SPLM has tended to take its electoral support for granted and counts on established loyalties. It is possible that conditions will not be conducive for free and fair elections in the South.
Darfur is a headache for all the major parties. All would be ready to proceed with national elections irrespective of Darfurian participation, but none wants to be the one who suggests suspending the elections there. Most expect that Darfur will become a liability for the national elections, especially fearing that violence or disputed outcomes will damage the credibility of the national elections. The mainstream Northern parties are tempted to treat Darfur in the same way that Northern Ireland was treated by the mainstream British political parties for decades—as an irritant that should not become a partisan electoral issue (thereby disenfranchising the electors in the province). But at present there is no way of insulating Darfur’s problems from the national electoral process.
Among Darfurians, the majority view appears to be that participation in either the census or the election would be a mistake. IDPs fear that they will be either disenfranchised or lose the right to return home, and that recent West African immigrants will be enfranchised in their place. Some Darfurian leaders in the NCP have expressed opposition to the election. The opportunity of presenting the elections as a mechanism for liberation through democracy has been missed. It is now too late to alter Darfurian popular opinion on this issue, which means that any elections in Darfur will be severely compromised. Failed elections in Darfur and the consequent missed deadline for the 2010 referendum on the status of Darfur will have severe implications for the remaining credibility of the DPA.
Khartoum is clearly worried by the prospects of a Democratic administration in Washington DC, fearing that it would take a bellicose stand against the Sudan government. Partly for this reason, the GoS welcomed the new U.S. Special Envoy, Ambassador Richard Williamson, on his recent visit to Khartoum. The GoS wants to put its relations with the U.S. and other western nations on a new footing. Many in the U.S., for their part, recognize that they need to do business with Khartoum. Williamson proposed a sequence of reciprocal steps that each could take. The main problem is that there is so much distrust on both sides that no leader in Khartoum or western capitals is ready to take the other’s commitment in good faith. All are minded to wait for clear evidence that the other side has delivered before responding. The GoS will not abandon its bellicose posture towards Chad without firm guarantees that its interests can be protected. Khartoum continues to believe that there are individuals well-placed within the administration who acts to further regime change. Given the difficulties of the GoS adopting and sticking to a single coherent policy, especially under these circumstances, it is improbable that it could display sufficient good intentions within a six month period, for the U.S. administration to be satisfied and change policy before the Presidential elections.Bottom of Form

References 1) Buku sir 2) http://www.enoughproject.org/publications/democracy-key-peace-sudan, published on Jan 9, 2008. 3) http://africanarguments.org/2008/04/17/prospects-for-peace-and-democracy-in-sudan-april-2008/, published on April 17, 2008.