No surprises here
THE three days of balloting in parliamentary and presidential elections in Sudan on April 13th-15th left Ahmed Khalil with a simple question: why three days? “Everyone knows the outcome already,” said the young teacher as he passed a campaign poster in Khartoum, the capital, with a train of pupils dressed in camouflage-print school uniforms. “Most countries manage to vote in one day and really we could be done in five minutes.”
Nobody doubts that Omar al-Bashir, in power since he led a military coup in 1989, will remain president for another five-year term. He is ostensibly running against 14 other candidates, but none is a threat, or particularly independent. The real opposition united last year under the label “Sudan Call”, hopeful of gaining a greater say. The government announced a “national dialogue” in response, but little good has come of it. Security forces cracked down; copies of 14 newspapers were confiscated on a single day last February. With the deck stacked against it, the opposition boycotted the poll. Mr Bashir, indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court (ICC), looks as strong as ever.
That is awkward for the West. It has long ostracised Mr Bashir. But its friends in the region are asking if it is time to start dealing with him. The main reason is that Sudan, once a constant mischief-maker, has become surprisingly useful.
Since late March Mr Bashir has backed Saudi Arabia’s armed campaign against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. He visited King Salman, who ascended the throne in January, after years of testy relations. He has also drawn closer to Egypt and several Gulf states, supporting a military push against Islamist militias in Libya that had once been provisioned by Sudan. The Islamists are allied to a would-be government in Tripoli. But Mr Bashir will now “co-ordinate” with the internationally recognised government in Beida, says Abdullah al-Thinni, its prime minister. Mr Bashir has also buried the hatchet with Chad, another former foe and a Western ally in the fight against jihadists in the Sahel. In South Sudan, he has meddled less amid the chaos than many had expected. And he has distanced himself from Iran, his old ally. Regionally, Sudan has come in from the cold.
Yet Western diplomats question whether Mr Bashir has really changed his spots. His regime has long been close to radical causes. It has cosied up to the Saudis over Yemen only after angering them by apparently helping Iran supply the Houthis. One reason for Sudan to switch sides is that Saudi money may rescue its floundering economy, as it did Egypt’s. The loss of oil revenues after the secession of South Sudan has drained its coffers; the phasing out of subsidies has pushed up prices.
Western sanctions are another reason for Sudan’s economic woes, though in February America relaxed long-standing restrictions on the sale of smartphones and laptops to the country. Yet when Mr Bashir spoke at an Egyptian investment conference in March, John Kerry, America’s secretary of state, who was also there, felt obliged to leave the room. Sudan is not as strategically valuable as other countries with which America is seeking to engage, such as Cuba and Iran. Nor has Sudan made any attempt to be less grotesquely brutal at home. The UN panel of experts on Sudan says that more than 3,000 villages in Darfur, the country’s troubled western region, were burned in 2014 by militias linked to Mr Bashir. Oxfam says more than 50,000 people have fled their homes this year. And diplomats say government aircraft have bombed hospitals in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, two other mutinous provinces. A warm Western handshake with Mr Bashir still seems far off.