NEWS ANALYSIS: It is not inconceivable that by the end of this month — perhaps even the end of week — three north African countries will have new leaders. But hold the champagne, revolutions can get messy.
It is not inconceivable that by the end of this month — perhaps even the end of week — three north African countries will have new leaders. It is yet another turbulent period in the region’s history, and, like 2011’s Arab Spring, the ramifications of what’s happening now will be felt for years to come, and not just within the confines of the countries at the centre of the tumult.
In his place comes 76-year-old Abdelkader Bensalah, the speaker of parliament’s upper house and a key ally of the former president. So close is their relationship that when the former president was too ill to perform his official duties, Bensalah would act on his behalf, so this is hardly a revolution; more a fractional evolution of the status quo.
So far, in this round of protests, at least 21 people have died, but the demonstrations have only grown in size and in ambition. Now some elements of the military have turned against their president, and there is a very real possibility that Bashir’s days are numbered. There is also a very real possibility that Bashir will mobilise the paramilitary forces loyal to him — some of which are also implicated in atrocities in Darfur and elsewhere — and raise the death toll dramatically.
Then again, nearby Libya, in the throes of yet another messy political transition of its own, is a cautionary tale — and a reminder that while revolutions always deliver change, it is rarely the kind of change that protesters envisage. The departure of Muammar Gaddafi, hastened by a misguided western bombing campaign, was supposed to usher in a new democratic era.
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