The Face of Truth | Ibrahim Shaglawi The Sudanese Elites and the Last Opportunity

Can the Sudanese elites transition from rhetorical politics to productive politics? This question has become the core of the entire national predicament. Sudan is not facing a conventional governance crisis, nor an ordinary political disagreement; rather, it stands before a historical test related to the very function of the elite itself: Is it an instrument of conflict or a lever for state-building? Is it still capable of learning from its failed experiences, or is it captive to its old discourse that led the country into war?

Since the fall of Omar al-Bashir’s regime in 2019, the Sudanese elites were presented with a rare opportunity to re-establish the state on new foundations that transcend the legacy of empowerment, wars, and marginalization.

 However, this moment was managed with a spoils mentality rather than the logic of a social contract. Instead of transitioning from antagonism to national partnership, an exclusionary mindset prevailed, and political transformation was treated as the victory of one side over another, rather than a comprehensive process of rebuilding the state.

Here began the first failure. The elites did not fail because they lacked discourse, but because they were unable to translate discourse into public policy, into a governing program, and into institutions capable of change. Slogans of freedom, peace, and justice were raised, but practice quickly slipped into political revenge. Instead of entrenching the rule of law, it was emptied of its substance; the state came to be run by individuals rather than institutions, and by loyalties rather than rules. With this slippage, the moral legitimacy of the transitional authority eroded, and the trust of broad segments of society dissipated—particularly among youth and women, who had been the fuel of change and its first victims.

The failure, however, was not only moral but structural. Politics detached from economics turned into a void. The elites offered no serious vision for production, nor for addressing livelihood crises, nor for rebuilding the local economy. Thus, politics became without an economy, legitimacy without bread, and the state without function. In this vacuum, forces of fact—armed and unarmed—expanded, and centers of influence began to fill the space from which the inept civilian state had withdrawn.

Then came the most dangerous phase: managing political disagreement with an exclusionary mentality—no room for consensus, no value for compromise, no meaning for pragmatic approaches. Every disagreement was read as an existential battle, and every concession portrayed as treason. This behavior did not only exclude opponents; it excluded the very idea of the state itself, because a state is built on managing disagreement, not erasing it. With the horizon of consensus blocked, parties lost their ability to regulate the political arena, transforming from instruments of organization into sources of tension and polarization.

In this context, the concept of legitimacy was stripped of its true substance. Instead of an early recourse to the people through elections or a clear transitional path, reliance was placed on an open-ended revolutionary legitimacy with no time ceiling, managed through narrow alliances with incomplete mandates and top-down agreements.

Over time, this legitimacy became a fragile cover that neither protected the state nor disciplined actors. Institutions weakened, decision-making faltered, and security slipped beyond state control. Crime spread in all its forms, creating the conditions for the maturation of war.

At this point, the question of security entered its most perilous phase. Security is not a technical file nor a purely military affair; it is the essence of the state. When the elites failed to articulate a comprehensive national vision for security, their positions oscillated between silence, justification, and misplaced bets. More dangerous still was the political normalization of weapons outside the state, whether as tools of pressure or elements of balance.

This tolerance toward the principle of the state’s monopoly on force was not a tactical mistake, but a fundamental breach of the social contract.

With internal paralysis, the elites turned outward. Unable to manage their disputes nationally, they handed the keys of decision-making to regional and international mediations. With each round of negotiations inside or outside the borders, Sudan lost a portion of its sovereignty, transforming from a state seeking a national settlement into an arena managed according to others’ interests. Thus, the external actor ceased to be a neutral mediator and became an aspiring player, and settlements were no longer just, but tailored to regional and international power balances.

In this climate, the war was not a sudden explosion, but a logical outcome of a corrupt political trajectory that separated politics from economics, legitimacy from sovereignty, and the state from its monopoly on force. With the resilience of the military institution, the clash of those coveting power through a coup then escalated into a comprehensive war that exposed the elites’ incapacity, laid bare the fragility of their project, and placed the country before an unprecedented existential cost.

Today, as the war continues, the same errors are being reproduced with a different discourse. Calls for exclusion, the expansion of treason accusations, and attempts to classify political and social components as outside the national fold reflect a political mentality that has learned nothing from the catastrophe. Sudan is not waging a battle of currents; it is fighting for the survival of the state. Any fragmentation of the internal front at this moment serves neither justice nor transition; it only grants the enemies of the state additional opportunities and prolongs the conflict.

Conversely, the mutual accusations among political forces reveal a complete collapse of the logic of national contracting. Instead of resorting to independent investigation, legal accountability, and a clear moral stance on violations, the discourse descends into comprehensive denunciation, where accusations are equalized and the blood of civilians is lost amid competing narratives. Thus, politics transforms from a tool of construction into fuel for war.

Experiences from the regional environment confirm that exiting crises is not achieved through excluding opponents nor by internationalizing disputes, but by redefining the role of the elites themselves. Wherever politics met production, wherever discourse was tied to a realistic economic program, and wherever issues of arms and sovereignty were resolved nationally, states were able to overcome their crises. These experiences are not to be replicated mechanically, but they remind us of a truth: there is no state without consensus, no stability without an economy, and no sovereignty without an independent national decision.

From here, the post-war phase represents a final test for the Sudanese elites—a test not measured by the sharpness of discourse nor the abundance of statements, but by the ability to move from zero-sum politics to national contracting, from opposition to production, from external dependence to the recovery of national decision-making, and from ideology to the state.

According to The Face of Truth, the opportunity still exists, but it is no longer open without conditions. Either the elites redefine politics as an instrument for building the state and protecting the social contract, or they remain prisoners of their past, witnesses to a collapse that was not destiny, but the result of their disgraceful choices. At this crossroads, history will not be merciful to those who possessed the opportunity and squandered it.

Wishing you continued well-being and good health.

Monday, January 12, 2026

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