A number of reports from activists within the Arsod Network have highlighted the destabilising role of members of the former regime, notably those belonging to the National Congress Party (NCP). These reports have included mobilising private militias, mobilising supporter bases including student groups, and fostering shortages of key strategic goods to encourage demonstrations. All these efforts are to destabilise the work of the Transitional Government and to encourage counter-revolutionary principles.
One key example of this emanated from the September protests in Nyala concerning the bread shortages. The bread shortages were the result of a lack of flour, a key strategic resource controlled and rationed by remnants of the former regime for their own political and economic ends. Through creating shortages they were successful in provoking demonstrations. It is notable that bread shortages were a key ignition to the protests that brought down the former regime.
During the demonstrations in Nyala the former NCP figures mobilised their student movements. Students were heard chanting “No Water. No Bread. We are sorry Bashir.” These demonstrations were evident of the tactics used by members of the former regime to undermine the Transitional Government and to indicate that life under the former President Bashir and the NCP was preferential. It is worth noting there were two protests that day. This protest led by the NCP students, and another led by the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC).
This encapsulates the concept of the “Deep State” and its potential and eagerness to thwart the building of a “New Sudan”. In the Sudanese context, the “Deep State” is that where remnants of the former regime, though mostly out of public office, retain control of the economic, political and military levers of the state.
This “Deep State” was built and interwoven with 30 years of kleptocratic governance whereby political and military allegiance were bought through patronage and corruption. The fall of the regime threatens those that benefited as they stand to potentially lose their money, assets, power, status and even their freedom.
