An Introductory Discussion Paper on the Core Political Disagreements
Elwathig Kameir
kameir@yahoo.com
Cairo, August 12, 2026
Much has been written about how to end Sudan’s war. Far less attention has been paid to a more fundamental question: why have Sudanese political and civilian actors themselves struggled to even begin a meaningful national dialogue?
Sudan has never suffered from a lack of political visions. If anything, since independence it has been overburdened by competing visions of the state and how the country should be governed. Disagreements over the nature of the state and appropriate system of governance, the sources of political legitimacy, the locus of authority, centre–periphery relations, and the relationship between religion and the state have remained at the heart of Sudan’s political experience. Successive political settlements have failed to reconcile these competing visions in ways capable of laying the foundations of a stable state. The experience of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ending the civil war between the northern part of the country and what is now South Sudan demonstrated that even major political settlements cannot, on their own, resolve foundational disagreements that remain unaddressed; the political trajectory that followed ultimately culminated in the secession of South Sudan.
Against the backdrop of the continuing war, the challenge goes beyond stopping the fighting. It also requires confronting a set of deep political disagreements that obstruct serious efforts to end the war and prevent Sudanese political actors from even sitting at the same table.
The present crisis is not primarily one of insufficient initiatives, ideas, or general principles. Rather, it is increasingly defined by sharp divisions over a number of concrete political questions that the war itself has brought to the forefront.
Towards an inclusive Sudanese Dialogue: Identifying the core disagreements
At a deeper level, Sudan’s long-running “war of visions” is rooted in foundational questions that have remained unresolved since independence: the nature of the state, the sources of legitimacy, civil–military relations, the reach of central authority, and the meaning of citizenship, among others.
This paper does not attempt to address these questions directly at the constitutional or theoretical level. Instead, it asks how those unresolved foundational issues have re-emerged, in the context of the current war, as a set of immediate and concrete political disagreements. This does not mean that Sudan’s foundational questions have disappeared or somehow been settled. On the contrary, they have repeatedly been deferred during successive transitional periods. Political and military elites have tended to devote greater energy to controlling transitional authority and its institutions than to reaching agreement on the constitutional and political foundations of the state itself. The question of “who governs?” has repeatedly taken precedence over the more fundamental question of *“how should the state be constituted?”
The struggle for power should therefore not be understood as the opposite of the conflict over competing visions of the state. The two have become deeply intertwined. Competition over political power has contributed to the repeated postponement of foundational questions, while the failure to resolve those questions has, in turn, reproduced struggles over power in each successive political phase.
Seen in this light, today’s political disagreements are neither substitutes for Sudan’s foundational questions nor merely superficial disputes masking a straightforward contest for power. Rather, they *reflect the interplay between competing interests and struggles for power*, on the one hand, and deeper disagreements over the state, legitimacy, war, and political transition, on the other. In their present form, these disagreements constitute practical obstacles to preparing and convening an inclusive Sudanese dialogue. Addressing them cannot substitute for the wider foundational debate, but it may provide a necessary entry point for reducing the current political divide and creating conditions and a conducive environment in which those larger questions can eventually be addressed more constructively.
This apparent consensus provides an important test of the paper’s central proposition. Most Sudanese political and civil forces broadly agree, at least in principle, that a credible political process should begin with a ceasefire, protection of civilians, unhindered humanitarian access, and confidence-building measures, followed by movement towards a comprehensive political settlement. Yet this consensus is often closer to agreement on the sequence of steps than on the political conditions required to implement them.
Once discussion moves from broad principles to implementation, fundamental disagreements quickly re-emerge over the nature of the war and its parties, who should participate in the political process, and the principles on which that process should be based. The decision by some Sudanese political and civic actors to decline the Quintet’s invitation to a preparatory meeting in Addis Ababa early this month offers a timely illustration: their stated reservations concern precisely several of these questions. In other words, the obstacles identified in this paper emerge precisely when the parties begin to consider how a political process might actually proceed.
The purpose of this paper is therefore not to debate the sequencing of the process itself, but to identify the political disagreements that make movement from one stage to the next so difficult. Nor does the paper seek to prescribe a model for dialogue, propose an alternative negotiating track, compete with existing initiatives or preparatory committees, obstruct their work, or diminish their importance. Its purpose is more modest, yet arguably more fundamental: to offer an analytical framework for discussion with different political and societal constituencies in order to test a simple proposition: Do five core political issues—together with the overarching disagreement over the nature of the current war—constitute the principal obstacles preventing a meaningful Sudanese–Sudanese dialogue from getting underway?
The paper is therefore not concerned with how such a dialogue should be prepared, managed, or concluded. It addresses a prior question: Why have Sudanese political actors found it so difficult to sit around the same table in the first place?
If this diagnosis is broadly correct, future dialogue efforts may need to include structured conversations around these disagreements themselves. Such discussions could help prepare the political ground for dialogue, support existing initiatives, and improve their prospects of success, rather than compete with or substitute for them.
Five issues appear to lie at the heart of the current political divide:
- The Rapid Support Forces (RSF);
- the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF);
- the current leadership of the SAF;
- the political role of Islamists; and
- the role of regional and international actors.
As long as Sudanese political and societal forces remain deeply divided over these questions, attempts to prepare a Sudanese–Sudanese dialogue will remain fragile and vulnerable to breakdown at the first serious political test. Engaging these disagreements directly is therefore no longer an abstract intellectual exercise. It has become a practical requirement for any dialogue capable of contributing to an end to the war and opening the way towards a nationally agreed political process. I have addressed different aspects of these questions in earlier articles and papers, both directly and within broader discussions of Sudan’s political transition and the crisis of the state. The paper has also benefited from conversations with a number of Sudanese interlocutors representing different political and intellectual perspectives, which helped test its central proposition and sharpen aspects of the argument.
As the war has continued and the political landscape has become more complex, the divisions among Sudanese political and societal forces have increasingly appeared to converge around these same issues. his has strengthened my conviction that they constitute some of the principal obstacles to a serious Sudanese–Sudanese dialogue.
This proposition is not merely “an analytical inference”. It is also reflected in the public statements of political and civil forces themselves when explaining their decisions to boycott, or place conditions on participation in meetings intended to prepare for political dialogue. Their objections have frequently gone beyond procedural concerns to encompass disagreements over how the war itself is defined, the role of Islamists, the political standing of the SAF and the RSF, ownership of the political process, the relationship between the political track and efforts to stop the fighting, and the representation of political and societal constituencies.
This reinforces the central proposition of the paper: the difficulty in convening dialogue does not arise from a shortage of calls for dialogue. It stems, to a significant degree, from continuing disagreement over the foundations of the process, who should participate in it, and the political questions it must ultimately confront.
The Overarching Disagreement: How Do We Understand the April War?
The five issues are themselves embedded in a broader and more fundamental disagreement over the nature of the current war and the causes of its outbreak”. Sudanese political and societal forces do not simply disagree over how the war should end. They begin from sharply different narratives about what the war is, who its principal actors are, and what drove it in the first place.
These competing narratives are not merely differences of interpretation. They reflect deeper divisions over the nature of the Sudanese state, the sources of political legitimacy, the role of the military establishment, the position of Islamists, and the limits and consequences of regional and international involvement. They also directly shape attitudes towards the belligerents, negotiations, and the kind of political process different actors believe should follow.
The disagreement over the *nature of the war * therefore provides the overarching frame for the five political issues identified above. It helps explain why Sudanese actors have found it so difficult to agree even on the conditions under which they might sit at the same table.
Recognising this does not mean that a future dialogue should begin by trying to impose a single narrative of the war, nor that participants must first settle competing interpretations of its origins. Such an approach could easily produce an endless contest over narratives. Rather, the point is to acknowledge that these different understandings exist, that they have helped shape political positions throughout the war, and that their effects cannot simply be wished away when designing a political process.
The task, therefore, is to clarify and unpack these disagreements—not in order to privilege one political position or narrative over another, but to identify the actual points of divergence that continue to obstruct dialogue. Serious dialogue does not begin by concealing differences or postponing them indefinitely. It begins by recognizing them and creating a structured political space in which they can be addressed.
Experience suggests that Sudan’s problem is not a shortage of initiatives or diagnoses. It is the persistent inability to confront the issues over which the political community is actually divided. Attempts to bypass these disagreements, defer them, or treat them as secondary have repeatedly risked reproducing the very divisions they were intended to overcome.
This discussion paper does not offer ready-made solutions. Its purpose is to provide an initial framework for conversations with different Sudanese political and societal constituencies and to test whether the five issues identified above—together with the overarching disagreement over the nature of the war—do indeed constitute the principal obstacles to convening a meaningful Sudanese–Sudanese dialogue.
The challenge facing Sudanese actors today is therefore not simply to call for dialogue. It is to create the political conditions that make dialogue both possible and worthwhile. Between the continuation of Sudan’s war of visions and the emergence of a nationally agreed process capable of managing political diversity peacefully, the first step may be the most difficult: to name the real disagreements, confront them openly and responsibly, and begin treating them as an essential part of the path towards ending the war and building a shared national vision.
