KHARTOUM Despite being the target of the first-ever international arrest warrant against a sitting head of state, Sudanese President Omar Al Beshir will keep his tight grip on power, at least for now, analysts say.

Ever since Beshir seized power in a 1989 coup, he has been careful to keep control of the military, and his key lieutenants within the regime are unlikely to mount an internal putsch as they too are threatened with proceedings by the International Criminal Court.

And in the run-up to Wednesday's warrant from the court, he organised a series of displays of support in his northern power base, including a mass rally in the capital Khartoum and the launch of a massive new hydro-electric plant to its north at which thousands of supporters paraded photographs of him.

“I think a coup is very unlikely,” said Sudan specialist Alex de Waal.

“There are a number of reasons why Beshir is relatively secure vis-à-vis his close colleagues. One of the reasons is that none of them are sure that they wouldn't also be the target of the ICC if they took over,” he said.

“And secondly, Beshir has one great asset in that group, which is that he is very loyal to his colleagues, he does not throw them all overboard. No one has that confidence about any of the others that are close to him.”

De Waal said that ironically ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who called for the arrest warrant against Beshir in July, had consolidated his grip on power.

“I would be surprised if the army was anything less than very loyal to Beshir,” he said.

“One of the implications of what Ocampo has done is he made it more likely that Beshir would remain president for a longer period of time.”

De Waal said that he expected the Darfur rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement to seize on the ICC warrant as a pretext for walking away from peace negotiations with the government but played down the likelihood of a new assault on Khartoum like the one they launched in May last year.

“I think that the JEM is positioning itself to be the domestic Sudanese champion of the ICC... and will try to mobilise support and rally around and say we would not negotiate with this government because it is a criminal government,” he said.“I would be surprised if they do it the same way (as last year's offensive against the Sudanese capital) but I would be surprised if they do not escalate their activities.”

The court issued a warrant for Beshir's arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but stopped short of ordering his arrest for genocide against the Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa minorities in Darfur as urged by the chief prosecutor.

Gerard Prunier, Sudan specialist at the National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris, agreed that a new offensive by the JEM, the best equipped of Darfur's rebel groups, was likely, but said the fate of the regime remained unclear.

“The goose is cooked, now it's a matter of knowing with what sauce it will be eaten,” said Prunier.

Most likely is an internal putsch by someone - untainted by allegations of human rights infractions - within Beshir's ruling National Congress Party (NCP), Prunier said, adding that a military coup was also a possibility.

Brussels-based think-tank the International Crisis Group hailed what it called a “landmark decision” by Hague-based court providing independent legal recognition of the massive crimes committed in Darfur.

It warned Khartoum against the risks of responding by declaring a state of emergency or clamping down on the opposition and urged the regime's allies to remember the strong interest they have in Sudan's stability.

The think-tank said that while it was unlikely Beshir would step down in the short term, “the status quo is unsustainable in the long term”.

“There are increasingly those within the senior ranks of the NCP who believe Bashir's policy of confrontation with Sudan's peripheral regions (Darfur, Kordofan, eastern and southern Sudan) has been counterproductive,” it said.

“To preserve its economic interests and guarantee its survival, the NCP is likely to look for a way out of a situation, by changing its policies or leadership. To succeed, it will need to change both.”—AFP