Sudanese researcher analyzes coups and coup attempts in home country in political science, Abu-Lughod seminar

Dr. Mada Al Fateh, a Sudanese writer and researcher at Centre d'Etudes Diplomatiques et Stratégiques (The Center for Diplomatic and Strategic Studies), has discussed the recent coup and coup attempts in Sudan in a seminar organized by Birzeit University’s Department of Political Science at the Faculty of Law and Public Administration and the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies on November 9, 2021.

Al Fateh went through the history of Sudanese governments, from independence through civil wars and until today. He explored the civilian-military power relations in Sudan, noting the existence of an underlying structural weakness in the role of elites and political factions that left Sudan vulnerable to conflicts and facilitated military dominance over the government on several occasions. This, he explained, has led to the Sudanese government facing insuperable challenges in its attempts to achieve democratization and fair distribution of national wealth and power among the country’s diverse population.

The political system in Sudan, Al Fateh noted, has failed to protect the Sudanese people against discrimination or exclusion based on religion and race, creating an uneven system that, the Sudanese scholar argued, was one of the contributing factors that facilitated the development of divisions within Sudan and led to the involvement of the military in local politics, throwing the country into chaos.