Sudan’s Military Seizes Power, Casting Democratic Transition Into Chaos

Civilian and military leaders were supposed to share power after a popular uprising in 2019 overthrew a decades-long dictatorship. On Monday the military detained the civilian prime minister.

Sudan’s top generals seized power on Monday, arresting the prime minister, imposing a state of emergency and opening fire on protesters, in tumultuous scenes that threatened to derail the transition to democracy in an African nation just as it emerged from decades of harsh autocratic rule and international isolation.

Sudan’s military and civilian leaders have been sharing power for over two years in a tense, uneasy arrangement negotiated after a popular uprising ousted Sudan’s longtime dictator, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, in 2019. It was supposed to lead to the country’s first free vote in decades.

But on Monday, the military shredded that deal, turned on the civilian leadership and declared that it alone would rule.