Sudan’s democratic transition is upended by a second coup in two years

THE SCRIPT was all too familiar. First, Sudan awoke to find that Abdalla Hamdok, the prime minister appointed by protest leaders two years ago, had been arrested by the army. Then the internet was switched off. Bridges into the capital, Khartoum, were closed, as was its airport. “What is happening now in Sudan is a military coup,” said Nasredeen Abdulbari, the justice minister. Soon protesters were on the streets, burning tyres and chanting slogans, such as “retreat is impossible.”The scenes recall the heady days of Sudan’s revolution in 2019, when peaceful mass protests toppled Omar al-Bashir, a ruthless Islamist despot who had ruled Sudan for three decades. Then alas, the army seized power in a coup. To quiet further mass protests, the generals made a with the protest leaders. Lieutenant-General Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan became Sudan’s de facto president and chairman of the sovereign council, a military and civilian body charged with overseeing Mr Hamdok’s mostly civilian cabinet. Mr Burhan was originally supposed to hand over to a civilian this year ahead of elections that were due to take place in 2022. Instead he has mounted a second coup, which may spell the end of yet another brief Sudanese attempt at democracy.