The Sudan Handbook

166 thE sudan handbook

Just a few weeks before the collapse, Nimeiri had imprisoned the Islamist

leadership, which, fortunately for them, enabled the movement to make

a come-back to the political scene despite its rather long association with

the defunct regime. Under a new umbrella organization, the National

Islamic Front (NIF), the Islamist movement managed to capture 51 seats

during the parliamentary election of 1986, thus becoming the third largest

party in parliament after the Umma and DUP. The Umma and DUP

joined together in a coalition government headed by Sadiq al-Mahdi,

leader of the Umma party, as prime minister, and the NIF formed the

official parliamentary opposition. The main concern of the NIF leaders

during the parliamentary period was to secure the gains achieved during

Nimeiri’s years and to further expand their movement. To this end, they

led an assault on the Umma-DUP government with the aim of either

inheriting its largely Muslim constituencies or forcing it to give the NIF

a share of power.

During the three year-long democratic episode (1986–89), the NIF first

led the opposition to al-Mahdi’s government, then joined the government

coalition in mid-1988, then left the government in early 1989, as a result

of extra-parliamentary pressure and the redrawing of government priori-

ties. Whether in government or opposition the NIF proved to be very

influential in setting the political agenda and successful in mobilizing

public opinion in support of its own agenda. As far as issues of substance

are concerned the NIF, among other things, emphasized preservation of

Nimeiri’s sharia laws, or their replacement with yet another ‘Islamic alter-

native’; it also advocated a tough militarist stand toward the rebellion in

the south which had broken out in 1983. The NIF aimed at discrediting

the two mainstream parties, Umma and DUP, presenting itself as the only

authentic custodian of the Arab-Islamic identity of the Sudanese nation.

The inclusion of the NIF in government demonstrated the extent

to which it was determining the government’s agenda even from the

opposition benches; its exclusion from power in early 1989 seems to have

prompted the Islamist coup of June 1989. The ability of the Islamists to

stage a military coup was a result of a long-term strategy to infiltrate the

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors army, a process which began after their reconciliation with Nimeiri in

(www.riftvalley.net).