Nothing would have happened because every civilian party in the country respected the Military. Itβs the whole reason why nobody protested or resisted the Bloodless Coup, and by 1969, the Armed Forces and the Police Force had already prevented two different unpopular coups. One by Northern officers which was squashed by Southern officers and one by Southern officers which squashed by Northern officers.
There is no indication that a civil-war would have happened because the civilian President would still be alive, with a strong neutral military to keep everyone in check. He was assassinated to make way for the Socialists, who in turn were influenced by the Soviets. All this talk of mass corruption or the state being on the brink of collapse were propaganda points to justify the communist take-over. The worst thing that would have happened is that the country might have economically stagnated in the 1970s, but these were issues that could be reversed with economic reforms, while corruption could have been subdued with greater resource sharing.
One thing is for sure another three to four decades of civilian governments and competitive elections definitely would have put us in a much better shape today if that had been the path we had taken. At worse it would be like the FGS today, but one that actually controlled all of its borders, no arms embargo, still major infrastructure projects and no regional admins within but still headed by controversial characters like HSM. At best weβd be like an African Malaysia.
