The Sudanese have been protesting for weeks against their country’s unregulated economic situation, demanding the dismissal of the Prime Minister and Chairman of the Sovereignty Council of Sudan. Protesters in Khartoum called for the dismissal of Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and the Chairman of the Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, due to the economic crisis. The Hamdok government has been facing widespread protests over the past few weeks due to the economic crisis.

Meanwhile, during a recent demonstration in the Al-Jarif district, east of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, the demonstrators also chanted slogans condemning normalization of relations with the Zionist regime.

What has been demonstrated in recent days in the form of public protests in the Sudanese capital is in fact continuation of the protests that ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir last year and paved the way for a series of other structural changes in the country. In other words, the public protests in Sudan are not a new event without a long records, but an event that is brought to light in Sudan, the vast African country, due to a series of issues that cause a series of other tensions and convulsions in that country.

These public protests mean that the officials of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council have failed to fulfill their promises to change the economic, political and social conditions and have not taken a significant step to alleviate problems of the people in that country; an issue that could gradually become a real threat to the continuation of the current Sudanese government. However, some stances of the present Sudanese authorities would add to the scope of these protests and would greatly increase their impact on creating serious tensions in the country. That is the outrageous and provocative stances taken by the Sudanese authorities in the latest case of normalization of relations with the Zionist regime who openly and without taking into account the strong ideological and political sensitivities of the Sudanese people, considered that relations with the Zionist regime is the prerequisite for the improvement of economic and social situation.

However, some political experts believe that the recent public protests in the capital and other Sudanese cities, before being related to the livelihood issues of the people of that country, are more a response to the new stances taken by the Sudanese authorities after the US pressure on Sudan and has put normalization of relations with Tel Aviv on the agenda of Khartoum officials. These experts also point to the role of that Abu Dhabi and Riyadh regimes play in the adoption of this new position, and believe that the present Sudanese authorities’ dependence on the UAE and Saudi Arabia has led them to act in line with the regimes of the two Arab states in basic scenes of decision-making. Whereas, Sudanese public opinion not only strongly oppose normalization of relations with the Zionist regime, but by no means can tolerate the puppetry of the Sudanese authorities to the reactionary Arab regimes. Therefore, in this sense, the public protests against the very poor living conditions of the Sudanese people have a much lesser role in creating current tensions compared to their protests against normalization of relations with the Zionist regime and alignment with the reactionary Arab regimes.

In fact, in last week’s protests, the Sudanese people used the living conditions as coverage for their protests against Sudan’s foreign policy, thus expressing their opposition to Sudan’s stance on normalization of relations with the Zionist regime.

In other words, this kind of protest in Sudan is exactly the same as the protests that gradually engulfed all Sudanese cities one after the other last year, leading to the ouster of Omar al-Bashir and his friends in the Sudanese government. Although there was no question of normalizing relations with Zionist regime last year, a large percentage of Sudanese protests against Omar al-Bashir stemmed from his alignment with reactionary Arab regimes, which led to the deployment of Sudanese troops to help the Saudi army in the war in Yemen. Of course, there is this possibility that public opposition will expand in time and space, and especially with the emergence of some major Sudanese parties, will pave the way for the dismissal of the present Sudanese authorities (supporters of the normalization of relations with the Zionist regime).

Meanwhile, Sudanese officials are trying to prevent repetition of what led to the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir rule last year by staging a show of talks with armed opposition groups in the south and west of the country, as well as by using propaganda leverage.