This weekend’s revelation that Sudan had appointed a notorious janjaweed militia leader to a senior government post was, as Human Rights Watch rightly called it, “a stunning affront to victims” of the violence in Darfur. It was not, however, much of a surprise. After all, Sudan’s government already includes a state minister for humanitarian affairs who is one of just two men currently under indictment by the International Criminal Court.

No, President Omar al-Bashir and his National Congress Party (NCP) have long demonstrated their contempt for both Darfur and international opinion, to the enormous detriment of the new United Nations peacekeeping mission, which remains undermanned, undersupplied, and undermined. Last month, a coalition of prominent nongovernmental organisations described it as being “set up to fail.”

The US and its allies on Darfur have long responded to Khartoum’s obstructions with public complaints and reaffirmations of their commitment to the mission. Though well-intentioned, this approach has played into the NCP’s hands. While American attention has been narrowly focused on the struggling peacekeeping mission, the NCP has been undercutting a potentially challenge to its rule — and with it, the greatest opportunity for lasting peace in Darfur.

As Bashir’s latest provocation suggests, the problem in Darfur is one that ultimately cannot be resolved by peacekeepers. That’s because its roots don’t lie in local grievances or ethnic divisions — though both have fuelled the fighting — but in the halls of power in Khartoum. The peacekeeping mission is urgently needed to improve immediate security, but lasting peace will come to Darfur and the rest of Sudan only when the country is led by a government committed to the cause. Remove the NCP from power and, as a senior UN official in Sudan told me recently, “the problem in Darfur is over.”

In most misgoverned nations, talk of such regime change would seem little more than a pipe dream — but remarkably, improbably, there exists in Sudan today a chance of revolution through the ballot box.

Under the terms of an existing but neglected peace agreement, signed in 2005 to end the 21-year civil war between the Khartoum government and southern rebels, Sudan is

obligated to hold a national election by July 2009. Next year’s election is the last chance to stave off what will otherwise be a resounding vote for southern secession, by showing southerners that they will be allowed to compete for national power in a unified, democratic Sudan.

With its current focus on peacekeepers, the Bush administration risks allowing this critical election to become just another broken NCP promise. The peacekeeping mission in Darfur is important, but if the US wants to see long-term peace in Sudan, the new special envoy Rich Williamson must place greater emphasis on the implementation of the CPA and the conduct of a free, fair, and regime-shattering election next year. — The Christian Science Monitor