The political base of the Sudanese army has fractured following a sharp split within the Democratic Bloc over participation in the exploratory consultations that began Wednesday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, under the auspices of the International Quintet Mechanism.
This rift manifested in the issuance of two contradictory statements: one apologizing for non-participation and the other announcing attendance and engagement in the meetings. According to observers, this is not merely a procedural discrepancy but rather reveals the crumbling of the “civilian political cover” that military leaders in Khartoum have long used to legitimize their ambitions and create artificial balances of power that mask their monopoly on managing the public sphere.
The Democratic Bloc was formed through a mix of armed movements that signed the Juba Agreement, along with tribal, regional, and traditional forces, to play a specific functional role: providing civilian backing for the military establishment in the face of international pressure and the aspirations of other revolutionary and civilian forces.
As the bloody conflict in the country has unfolded, this alliance has become the most prominent political tool used by the army to advance its vision of ending the crisis on its own terms and to claim the existence of a broad bloc supporting its policies. However, the chaotic scene in Addis Ababa today, and the conflicting press conferences by the coalition’s components, have proven that this political cover is fragile and built on limited balances of interest, and is liable to fragment as soon as it collides with a serious negotiation deadline.
Ahead of the Addis Ababa meetings, Mubarak Ardol, assistant to the head of the Democratic Bloc, stated at a press conference that the group participating in the meeting officially represents the bloc and had received notification of this meeting from the organization’s leadership.
Ardol emphasized that the bloc is committed to dialogue as the only way out of the crisis, and he believes that now is the right time to hold it despite the differing positions, noting that dialogue would lead the country to safety.
International and regional mediators seeking consensus to form a preparatory committee and launch a comprehensive Sudanese dialogue now find themselves facing divided delegations that do not speak with one voice.
Ardol acknowledged the existence of differences within the bloc regarding the issue of dialogue, but he reiterated that its structures are unified, adding: “We will reach a consensus, and we will sit down with the members who refuse to participate in the meeting.”
Observers say that the Democratic Bloc’s division regarding the Quintet mechanism—which includes the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union, the Arab League, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)—deals a severe blow to the military camp’s negotiating position.
International and regional mediators seeking consensus to form a preparatory committee and launch a comprehensive Sudanese dialogue now find themselves facing divided delegations that do not speak with one voice. Furthermore, the current situation undermines the military’s claim to possess a cohesive civilian base capable of engineering acceptable political solutions and highlights the structural crisis of alliances built on power-sharing and the distribution of authority under the protection of arms.
The roots of the division lie in the deep divergence of ambitions among the bloc’s own components; while armed movements seek regional guarantees to protect their influence and their logistical and field gains, while other political factions within the coalition fear that further alignment with the military agenda will lead to their international isolation and the squandering of their political future in the post-war era.
The internal conflict over the legitimacy of representation and the size of participating delegations reflects the inability of the “manufactured incubator” to stand on its own as an independent entity, exposing it as a tactical tool subject to any shift in the individual cost-benefit calculations of its leaders.
This division leaves the army leadership in Khartoum politically exposed to the international community at a critical regional juncture. Instead of presenting the Democratic Bloc as a balanced and strong alternative competing with other civilian entities or parallel coalitions, the current appearance of fragmentation gives regional and international powers an additional justification to bypass the terms of this alliance and marginalize its proposals, and even reinforces the international conviction that reliance on crisis-ridden, military-aligned political fronts cannot lay the foundation for a genuine democratic transition or sustainable stability in Sudan.
The proceedings of the first day of the Addis Ababa consultations offer a clear lesson regarding the fate of political alliances built merely to echo military institutions; they confirm that the absence of an independent national vision and the assumption of a permanent civilian cover to push through military strategies are losing bets.
This disintegration not only weakens the fragments of the democratic bloc but also strips away the civilian facade from the real power struggle, placing international mediators before the necessity of engaging with the Sudanese landscape with greater boldness—one that goes beyond front organizations and seeks more transparent and balanced criteria to save the country from the vortex of ongoing fragmentation.
