Threats and Opportunities for Peace in Sudan and the Wider Region
by Dr Ahmed Eltigani Sidahmed
The question of what comes after President Yoweri Museveni is not merely a domestic Ugandan question. It is a regional question with direct consequences for South Sudan, Sudan, the Great Lakes and the Horn of Africa. Museveni has governed Uganda since 1986, and his long rule has made the Ugandan state, its security institutions and its regional policy closely associated with his personal authority. Whether Uganda eventually moves through an orderly constitutional transition or enters a struggle over succession will therefore affect far more than Kampala.
For Sudan, this question is especially important. The Sudanese war is no longer contained within Sudan’s borders. It is sustained and complicated by regional alliances, arms flows, commercial interests, refugee movements and competing efforts by neighbouring and distant states to shape Sudan’s political future. A major political rupture in Uganda could widen those pressures. A responsible transition, however, could create an important opportunity for African diplomacy and a new regional commitment to peace.
The central issue is not who should rule Uganda. That choice belongs to Ugandans. The issue for Sudan is what kind of regional order will surround it: one built around personalised power, military alliances and proxy competition, or one based on institutions, sovereignty and negotiated peace.
The Risk of a Personalised Transition
Uganda has retained a degree of stability and regional influence under Museveni, but longevity itself creates a succession problem. When power remains concentrated for decades, the departure of the central figure can expose rivalries that institutions have postponed rather than resolved. Competition within the ruling movement, the security establishment, the presidential family and the political opposition could turn an orderly transfer of authority into a dangerous contest.
The prominence of General Muhoozi Kainerugaba has intensified speculation about succession. The difficulty is not simply whether a president’s son may seek political leadership. It is whether the succession will be determined by credible constitutional procedures and genuine public consent, or by control of the military and the machinery of the state. Uganda’s future stability will depend upon the answer.
If the transition is disputed, Uganda could face political unrest, repression, fractures within the security institutions or renewed violence in regions whose grievances have never fully disappeared. Such instability would not remain within Uganda. The country is deeply involved in the security and political affairs of its neighbours, and any internal struggle could be exported through military intervention, armed partnerships or competing regional alignments.
South Sudan Is the Immediate Bridge to Sudan
The most direct route by which instability in Uganda could affect Sudan is South Sudan. Uganda has repeatedly treated stability in Juba as a matter of national security. Ugandan forces have intervened in South Sudan, and Kampala has maintained close relations with President Salva Kiir’s government. At the same time, South Sudan remains politically fragile, economically dependent and vulnerable to renewed confrontation among armed forces and political leaders.
A Ugandan succession crisis could weaken the external support on which Juba has often relied, or it could produce an even more aggressive effort by rival Ugandan actors to demonstrate regional strength. Either outcome would be dangerous. Renewed large-scale conflict in South Sudan would close humanitarian routes, disrupt oil and trade corridors, create new displacement and turn the borderlands linking Uganda, South Sudan and Sudan into a wider theatre of armed competition.
Sudan would then confront another layer of insecurity along its southern frontier. Armed groups could find new supply networks. Political factions could seek protection from competing regional sponsors. Civilians already displaced by war would face further movement and hunger. The Sudanese crisis could become inseparable from a renewed South Sudanese crisis.
The Threat of Regional Camps
The greater danger is the formation of regional camps around Sudan’s war. Each neighbouring state has legitimate security concerns, but these concerns become destructive when they are pursued through armed clients inside Sudan. The region cannot achieve peace if every capital chooses a Sudanese faction and then describes interference as mediation.
Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Chad should support peace without attempting to manufacture a Sudanese government of their preference. Egypt must abandon the assumption that Sudan is a strategic extension of Egyptian security. Gulf governments must not use money, weapons or commercial leverage to determine Sudan’s military balance or acquire privileged control over its ports, land, gold and agricultural resources.
Arab states in particular should keep away from Sudan’s war. This does not mean that Sudan should isolate itself from the Arab world, reject humanitarian assistance or refuse constructive diplomacy. It means that Arab governments should stop treating Sudan as an arena for their rivalries and strategic ambitions. No Arab capital has the right to decide who rules Sudan, arm one side against another or use aid and investment as instruments of political tutelage.
The same principle applies to every external power. Sudan does not need one foreign axis to protect it from another. It needs the space to rebuild a sovereign state capable of dealing with all countries on the basis of mutual interests, transparent agreements and respect for the will of the Sudanese people.
An Opportunity for African Peace
The risks are serious, but the Ugandan question also contains an opportunity. A peaceful, constitutional and broadly accepted transition in Uganda would demonstrate that long-established systems can change without the collapse of the state. It would strengthen the principle that armies protect constitutional order rather than select presidents. That example would matter across a region where political succession is too often treated as a military emergency.
Uganda could also use its influence constructively. Kampala has long experience of regional negotiations, armed movements and the difficult relationship between security and political settlement. Used with restraint, that experience could support an African framework for Sudanese peace. Uganda could encourage dialogue, protect humanitarian access, help stabilise South Sudan and work through the African Union and a reformed regional process rather than pursue a separate sphere of influence.
But African leadership must not become another name for neighbouring governments deciding Sudan’s future. The legitimate role of the region is to create conditions for negotiation, prevent the flow of weapons, protect refugees, support humanitarian corridors and guarantee agreements reached by Sudanese parties. The substance of the political settlement must remain Sudanese.
What Sudanese Peace Requires
Sudanese ownership does not mean leaving the armed parties alone to divide the state. A credible peace process must include civilians, women, young people, displaced communities, refugees, professional groups, traditional and local leaders, and political forces from every region. It must address the roots of the war: the concentration of power and wealth, the political use of the army, the exclusion of the regions, the capture of institutions by ideological networks and the absence of equal citizenship.
The objective should be clear: one united Sudan, one professional national army, and an elected civilian government within a democratic and decentralised state. The transition must provide security for civilians, humanitarian access without political conditions, accountability for grave violations and a realistic process for integrating or demobilising armed formations. No military victory by itself can produce the legitimacy required to rebuild the country.
Regional diplomacy should therefore be judged by simple tests. Does it reduce the supply of arms? Does it protect civilians? Does it preserve Sudan’s unity while recognising the rights and powers of its regions? Does it move authority from armed actors to accountable civilian institutions? Does it leave Sudanese resources under Sudanese control? If it fails these tests, it is not a peace initiative; it is another form of intervention.
A Regional Responsibility Without Tutelage
Uganda’s eventual transition will arrive at a moment when East and Central Africa can no longer afford another state crisis. Sudan is devastated by war. South Sudan remains dangerously fragile. The humanitarian system is overwhelmed, and cross-border insecurity is spreading. The region needs fewer military adventures and more disciplined statecraft.
Uganda’s responsibility is to manage its own transition peacefully and constitutionally. South Sudan’s responsibility is to prevent political competition from returning the country to war. The African Union and regional institutions must defend clear rules against unconstitutional succession, proxy warfare and foreign military sponsorship. Arab and other external states must support these rules and refrain from manipulating Sudan’s conflict.
Sudan, for its part, must not wait for neighbouring governments to resolve its crisis. Sudanese political forces must build a national position strong enough to welcome mediation without surrendering ownership, accept assistance without accepting tutelage, and establish partnerships without allowing any foreign state to purchase political influence through weapons, money or access to resources.
The period after Museveni could therefore become either another source of regional instability or an opening for a more responsible African order. The difference will depend upon whether Uganda’s institutions prove stronger than personal succession, whether South Sudan chooses political settlement over renewed war, and whether Sudanese actors and their neighbours reject the logic of proxy conflict.
Peace in Sudan cannot be secured by replacing one external sponsor with another or by waiting for a powerful regional leader to impose order. It must be built through Sudanese agreement, supported by African institutions and protected from foreign interference.
Peace cannot depend upon who comes next. It must depend upon what remains when leaders leave.
Dr Ahmed Eltigani Sidahmed
Founding Leader, Sudan Founding Alliance (TASIS)
19 September 2026