On Monday 8th Feb. evening, Dr. Abdullah Hamduk, the Prime Minister of the Sudan Transitional Government has announced his newly formed government with 25 portfolios have been shared by a plethora of political partners, armed movements, and other contested parties. The transitional government with its military and civilian components are publicly unwelcomed since the current hardship of the daily life of the people have gotten harder with no foreseeable inclusive solution. Old and new names and faces have been brought up together to form what can safely be described as a government of national consensus regardless of the fact that the political formula is seemingly unharmonized in theory and practice.
Far beyond expectations, Mariam al-Sadig al-Mahadi a second women-Minister of Foreign Affairs to be be chosen for the job, preceded by Asma Abdullah a first women in the region to hold the post. Mariam 56 years has come from a sectarian religious family backed by her late father the Leader of Umma National Party (UNP), legacy’s Imam al-Sadig al-Mahadi. Professionally, she graduated as a physician but debuted her career as a political activist in middle of 90s at opposition front abroad. As a prominent political figure and public0020 orator, she was also known as a fierce dissent to the former radical pro-Islamic military junta, she represents a gentry traditional class of a conservative semi-family of Umma Party. Recently she was appointed among the members of a controversial Council of Partners that under the umbrella of the powerful dominated military component. Far from being predicted to be a minister of Foreign Affairs in this time of Sudan tumultuous situation, Mariam is not likely to steering the foreign and diplomatic polices as they should be. There’re too many thorny paths ahead along the Sudan regional and international debatable issues, to include Sudan-Israeli normalization relation recently signed, the Yemeni war where Sudan military and paramilitary armies participated since 2017, and in addition to that, the relation with the antagonistic neighboring state of Ethiopia.
With unknown background and experience in international affairs, the appointed Madam-minister has to stand up for a heavy legacy being left by the former regime where Sudan at the international scene as a state and policy shackled by economic and political impasses for decades. Before left the office the former US President Donald Trump, lifted Sudan from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism along other obstacles caused Sudan’s high price. Other flaws remain unresolved Madam Minister has to deal with. Facing such challenges need not only a courageous step rather an operational process to handling the uneven diplomatic and international implications. The question is that whether the Madam-minister would work effectively through board national interests, or a partisan one, the answer is literally unintelligible.
Mariam was grown as partisan politician activist seeking political if not personal political gains, whereas foreign affairs is a scope of vast equivocations must work for the public good. Fortunately, enough, her partisan policies if any wouldn’t have an impact on Sudan foreign affairs, Sudan political parties rarely work under the light of planned strategic. Not only wars and conflicts challenges would have become mostly complicated issues to be diplomatically addressed, Sudan post 2019 revaluation era came under exceptional circumstances ravaged the state weak apparatus. Alternatives at international level are limited if not unobtainable in the world of Covid-19, which means all prospective aids will be at best suspended.
Written by NASSIR Al -SAYEID AL-NOUR
