The December Revolution: Contexts, Actors and Challenges of Democratic Transition in Sudan

The first spark of the Sudanese revolution broke out in the city of Damazin, Blue Nile State, on December 13, 2018, against the backdrop of raising bread prices, then moved to the capital, Khartoum, and most of the state cities. The revolution attracted broad segments of Sudanese society, and the youth and women were its main bearers throughout the revolutionary movement, which lasted for about four months, until the fall of President Omar al-Bashir in a military coup on April 11, 2018. After that, negotiations began between the Forces of Freedom and Change and the Military Council that led the coup; to form a transitional government, entrusted with implementing the slogan of the revolution based on “freedom, justice and equality.” This report, through six axes, attempts to provide an analytical presentation of the positions of the social and political forces that ignited the revolution, within the framework of a protest demand resulting from the deterioration of economic conditions, which soon raised political slogans calling for the overthrow of the regime and the establishment of a democratic alternative. The report also discusses the positions of the armed movements and groups that were fighting the central government in Khartoum. In one of its axes, it sheds light on the economic conditions that were the political and objective reality for the outbreak of the revolution, and also addresses the regional and international positions that crystallized during the stage of revolutionary protests, and how they took another stage after the fall of the regime and the beginning of the formation of the civilian transitional government. The report devotes a part of it to studying the reality of the security and military institutions that played, and are playing, an important role in the transitional stage. The report attempts to