Omar al-Bashir was a 45-year-old brigadier when he led the coup that overthrew a democratic government in Khartoum and installed himself as leader of Sudan. Three decades later, it was another coup, this time one forced on the military by months of popular uprising, that ended his authoritarian rule.
While in power, Mr Bashir presided over what has proved the economically crippling loss of oil-rich South Sudan, which gained its independence in 2011 after years of civil war.
The 75-year-old leader also became the first sitting president to be indicted by the International Criminal Court, for alleged crimes against humanity against the people of Darfur in the west of the country. For most of his tenure, he was treated as a pariah by the US and much of the international community for his links with Islamists and for his dire human rights record.
Yet throughout it all, Mr Bashir proved a wily survivor. He defied the odds, often playing off one faction against another, both domestically and internationally.
“President Bashir was known as a master pragmatist. His ability to survive has been admired, or at least constantly noted, given the political and economic hardship that his country has been going through,” said Ahmed Soliman, a researcher at the Africa Programme of Chatham House, a UK think-tank.
“He has been expert at working to insulate his regime, to build networks of patronage . . . and stand at the very apex of the power structure. That’s what kept him in power for so long,” said Mr Soliman.
Mr Bashir, he added, had also sought to divide the security apparatus into factions in order to minimise the risk of a coup.
This week, though, Mr Bashir’s survival stratagems ran out. Protests were triggered in December by a decision to remove wheat subsidies, which sharply pushed up the price of bread, a staple. Those rallies quickly morphed into a full-fledged “Sudanese revolution” as tens of thousands of demonstrators across the country pressed for the end of his ailing regime.
Protesters, who were initially led by professionals such as doctors and lawyers, said they were sick of years of corruption and repression. Women, youth and people from all classes — galvanised by social media and Sudan’s long tradition of street rebellion — soon joined demonstrations under the rallying cry of “Fall that is all”.
In February, Mr Bashir tried to get a grip on events when he declared a state of emergency and installed military leaders as state governors. That won him only temporary reprieve.
Last Saturday, on the anniversary of a people’s uprising in 1985, protesters in Khartoum began a sit-in right in front of the military headquarters, saying they would not move until Mr Bashir had gone. As their protest gathered momentum, it exposed splits within the military apparatus, as low-ranking soldiers came out to defend demonstrators against members of the feared National Intelligence and Security Service as well as militias created by Mr Bashir.
For the past two nights, forces supposedly loyal to Mr Bashir had stopped trying to disperse the crowd, suggesting regime loyalists were switching sides. After hours of speculation on Thursday morning, during which protesters waited for an army announcement, the defence minister confirmed that Mr Bashir was under house arrest.
Alan Boswell, an expert on Sudan with the Crisis Group, said Mr Bashir will be remembered above all for presiding over the splitting of his state with the creation of South Sudan. “His biggest legacy will be the division of Sudan into two countries,” said Mr Boswell.
For the Sudanese people, he added, “he’s overseen a remarkable decline and ostracisation of the country”.
Mr Bashir originally came to power in close collaboration with Islamists and he subsequently allied himself with Hassan al-Turabi, the late leader of the National Islamic Front, who encouraged the implementation of sharia law. In the early 1990s, the US accused Sudan of harbouring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and, in 1993, Washington listed Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Mr Bashir often proved pragmatic in his dealings with the west, agreeing to give up Carlos the Jackal, a Venezuelan terrorist, to France in 1994, and to expel Bin Laden in 1996. But his concessions proved insufficient to appease the US, which bombed a Khartoum pharmaceutical plant in 1998 and imposed economic sanctions.
The pumping of oil from South Sudan helped Mr Bashir’s regime survive, but a peace deal he concluded in 2005, after years of fighting with the south, ultimately led to a referendum and the secession of South Sudan in 2011.
Mr Bashir’s problems only increased when, in 2003, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudanese Liberation Army began an armed insurgency in support of non-Arabs who felt discriminated against in Darfur. Mr Bashir’s response was to order a massive crackdown on Darfur that human rights activists characterised as genocide.
Whether Mr Bashir will be given immunity from prosecution or whether he will be handed over to the ICC is just one of many questions that will fall to the new military-led government. Meanwhile, protesters have vowed to continue their uprising until a civilian-led transitional government is installed, ousting Mr Bashir’s regime for good.
