KHARTOUM – When longtime Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir introduced drastic austerity measures, he berated the public for being ungrateful over how his regime had improved their lives, boasting that before he came to power, Sudanese never ate hot dogs, talking as if they were a strange, luxury food.

For the protesters streaming out into the streets for the past week demanding his ouster, al-Bashir’s talk of hot dogs in his Sept. 22 speech was one more sign of how out of touch he has become after 24 years in power. The protests, prompted by cuts in subsidies that sparked dramatic hikes in fuel and food prices, have brought out an unprecedented diversity — from the poor in Khartoum’s fringe neighborhoods to upscale districts of the capital.

Al-Bashir’s security forces have responded with a fierce crackdown, opening fire on marchers. At least 50 people have been killed, and Interior Minister Ibrahim Mahmoud said Monday that 700 people have been arrested, while authorities have clamped down on Sudanese media, trying to impose a blackout on reporting of the events.

The response is a sign of the vulnerability al-Bashir’s regime is feeling at a time when it has increasingly been fraying. Discontent has grown within the military and his own ruling party over the 69-year-old president’s handling of Sudan’s relentless stream of crises.

Since South Sudan broke away in 2011 and took with it most of the country’s oil resources, the economy has been in a shambles, with inflation mounting and nearly half the population living below the poverty line.

The regime has been unable to deal with multiple internal wars that further drain the Treasury as ethnic minorities wage insurgencies in the east, west and south, complaining of unequal distribution of power and wealth.

Even former allies are warning al-Bashir must carry out real democratic reforms or else the system could collapse, leading to the further fragmentation of Sudan. “I am afraid that the contagious disease that inflicted Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and Somalia will spread to Khartoum,” said Hassan Mekki, a leading Islamist figure and one-time al-Bashir ally.

Al-Bashir, an army officer, came to power in a 1989 military coup backed by Islamists. Since then, he has kept a powerful grip on power through a regime based on the support of the army and his ruling party, which controls all levers of government and is infused by Islamists, as well as an elaborate security apparatus he created, including the powerful National Intelligence and Security Forces, or NISS.

Mekki said a hard core of the regime still supports al-Bashir. But Mekki, who remains in close contact with the presidency, said even al-Bashir’s security officials are advising him that he cannot solve things simply by cracking down. “Gradually, al-Bashir will become a burden and his authorities will shrink as more people around him get fed up.”

Grumbling within the military has raised the possibility that the country could see yet another coup, as it did in 1964 and 1985. Former army Gen. Salah Eddin Karar said some in the officer corps feel al-Bashir has been monopolizing power, saying he failed to consult on major issues like the negotiations that led to the South’s separation or the conduct of the war in Darfur, the western region where rebels have been waging an insurgency since 2003.

“The military is not separate from what is happening in the street and in critical moments, it will side by the people as it always did,” Karar said.

Amgad Farid, a youth leader in one protest movement, Change Now, says activists are hoping the military takes limited action — not a coup, but a move to “protect the people from the regime’s atrocities.”

“Citizens are fed up. They are fed up with price hikes, corruption and theft,” he said. “And we have been living in 24 years of ideological dictatorship.”