Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir might be loathed and excoriated throughout most of the world and in vast swaths of his own country, but because his tenure has seen the country hit unprecedented heights of economic growth, he is reaping many of the political benefits of prosperity:
According to the International Monetary Fund, Sudan’s gross domestic product has nearly tripled since Mr. Bashir took power. Much of that growth has happened in the past decade or so since Sudan began exporting oil, propelling the nation’s “longest and strongest growth episode since independence” in 1956, a recent World Bank report said.
As Sudan continues voting this week in the first multiparty election in decades, it is precisely the fruits of this expansion — more schools, more roads, more hospitals, more opportunity — that explain why so many voters are eager to re-elect Mr. Bashir, who is suspected of war crimes and is often perceived as a villain in the West.
“Why would we vote for change?” asked Kamal Yusuf, one of Tabga’s elders, sitting on a couch in his brother’s spacious mud house, sipping a cool Pepsi (with ice). “Our lives are so much better than they used to be.”
Plenty of African countries have experienced similar economic growth in recent decades. But without hesitation, many Sudanese attribute the modernity, prosperity and change unfolding around them to the hard work of one man: Mr. Bashir, who has governed with a tight fist since 1989.
People vote for many reasons. But economic self interest is clearly one of the major motivations. al-Bashir may be a tyrant. But he has fattened wallets. That may prove to be all that matters, especially in the adjacent population centers of Khartoum and Omdurman and Bahri.