152 thE sudan handbookof the Islamic networks in the north to support the emergence of party
leaders of note. The very limited educational system of Condominium
rule had produced only a tiny intelligentsia in the south, and few south-
erners made it to the country’s only university in Khartoum. The result
was a lack of representation in Sudan’s centralized national politics,
and a growing alienation from it; while politics within southern Sudan
remained fragmented, with tiny political parties run by a very small
cohort of men educated to secondary-school level. Sudan suffered from
weaknesses in leadership of political parties, as well as weaknesses in
the formation of the parties themselves. The heads of the Ansar and
the Khatmiyya were spiritual leaders and placed themselves above the
hurly-burly of parliamentary politics; they did not stand for election. Yet
they were the major influences in the two largest parties, especially at
election times when it was the spiritual movements that delivered the
vote. Successive prime ministers were thus overshadowed by the patrons
of the parties they represented. Such were the ingredients of what soon
became a very centralized system in a huge and diverse country, one that
suffered poor communications and great regional disparities in economic
development.
The elections of late 1953 brought what is still the only outright victory
by a political party in a properly contested multi-party election in Sudan.
The NUP won a clear victory, and its leader Ismail al-Azhari became
prime minister. But even before independence he suffered a defeat in
parliament, reflecting the instability within his own party. Shortly after
independence al-Azhari broadened his government to form a coalition
with the Umma, with more southern participation. But that did not
help him survive the machinations of factional politics and by July 1956,
his own party had split. A rival group created the Popular Democratic
Party (PDP), which went into coalition with the Umma Party under an
Umma prime minister, Abdullah Khalil. That new government won the
1958 elections on a coalition ticket, but was subsequently embroiled in
arguments over whether or not Sudan should accept a US aid package. A
growing federalist movement in Parliament was also beginning to poseThe Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors a threat to the dominance of the two main parties.
(www.riftvalley.net).