The Sudan Handbook

152 thE sudan handbook

of 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 pose

The 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).