After splinter, can Sudan’s anti-war coalition reinvent itself?

Sudan's largest anti-war coalition, "Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council" (FFC-CC), ultimately split on February 10. The core dispute of this split lies in whether to participate in a parallel government formed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The Rapid Support Forces are one of the warring parties in Sudan's nearly two-year ongoing war.

The "Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council" coalition was formed in October 2023 and includes armed movements, political parties, and civil society activists, led by Abdalla Hamdok, the former prime minister overthrown by the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces in 2021. Now, the "Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council" has split into two factions.

Members who joined the Rapid Support Forces' parallel government and hold political positions within it are now known as "Taasis" (meaning "foundation"). Analysts told Al Jazeera that they are mostly armed movements who are betting on transforming weapons into leadership roles in the new Rapid Support Forces government. Kholood Khair, founding director of the Confluence Advisory think tank, stated that "Armed groups don't have a constituency, so they are reliant on a large armed force like the Rapid Support Forces as a guarantor for political seats."

Traditional political leaders who chose not to join the Rapid Support Forces, including Hamdok, formed a smaller anti-war coalition called "Somoud" (meaning "resilience"), attempting to maintain their neutrality and reputation. Khair added, "Political parties don't need [guarantors], forming a government with the Rapid Support Forces would be political suicide... They don't want to be seen as forming a government with genocidaires," referring to the United States' determination that the Rapid Support Forces committed genocide in Sudan's Darfur region.

The "Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council" was initially an anti-war coalition aimed at mediating the conflict that erupted between the Rapid Support Forces and the army in April 2023, stemming from disputes over how and when to integrate the former into the latter. This conflict has triggered one of the largest humanitarian crises, with armed clashes causing tens of thousands of deaths, famine declared in several regions, and approximately 12 million people displaced. The reputation of the "Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council" suffered a further blow when it signed the Declaration of Principles (DoP) with the Rapid Support Forces in January 2024.

The Declaration of Principles purportedly aimed to restore the supply of services in Rapid Support Forces-controlled areas and ensure that the organization respects basic laws of war. However, days after the agreement was reached, the Rapid Support Forces occupied Wad Madani, the capital of Sudan's breadbasket, Gezira State, and committed atrocities there, including rape, looting, and extrajudicial executions. At the time, many believed that the "Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council" was whitewashing the Rapid Support Forces' atrocities by signing the Declaration of Principles. Alan Boswell, an expert on Sudan at the International Crisis Group, stated that the agreement also raised "growing concern among many Western diplomats that elements of the FFC-CC were aligning with the Rapid Support Forces."

Hamid Khalafallah, a Sudanese policy analyst and doctoral candidate at the University of Manchester, agreed that the signing of the agreement exacerbated the "Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council's" legitimacy crisis. Khalafallah told Al Jazeera, "There is the issue of the FFC-CC being too close or slightly aligned with the Rapid Support Forces, because the Rapid Support Forces has been saying what the FFC-CC wants to hear, while the army has been quite resistant to [peace talks]."

Analysts told Al Jazeera that the split may be a "blessing in disguise" because it allows members of "Somoud" to distance themselves from the Rapid Support Forces, "rebrand themselves," and better connect with Sudanese civilians. Boswell believes that "Somoud" is now less tainted than the "Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council," but is also significantly smaller as a coalition, and predicts that the West will "wait and see" before deciding whether to consider "Somoud" a neutral actor. He also believes that, in the best-case scenario, "Somoud" could be part of a broader civilian unity government, with most officials aligned with one side of the conflict, as part of a power-sharing agreement to end the war.

Bakri Elmedni, spokesperson for "Somoud" and Associate Professor at the College of Business, Public Administration and Information Sciences at Long Island University, stated that "Somoud" has been conducting outreach activities and believes that any criticism of the "Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council" being too close to the Rapid Support Forces is a smear campaign against the anti-war coalition supported by the army. He claimed that the army helped draft the Declaration of Principles and was invited to the signing ceremony but refused to attend, instead using the Declaration of Principles to portray the "Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council" as a coalition that "sympathizes with or supports" the Rapid Support Forces. He told Al Jazeera, "We knew from the beginning that the accusations [against the 'Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council'] were part of a political campaign... Everyone knows these are lies." He also added, "However, it did affect the impression of the 'Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council,' but frankly, I don't believe there is any evidence that the 'Forces for Freedom and Change-Central Council' supports the Rapid Support Forces."