Ousted Prime Minister Sadiq Al-Mahdi to Vie For Presidency in Sudan

By Abdulaziz Billow Ali


Ousted Sudanese Prime Minister Sadiq Al-Mahdi has declared his interest in the upcoming April polls. Mr. Sadiq Al-Mahdi was elected in 1986 but was later ousted through a coup in 1989. Sadiq will go to the polls against current President Omar El Bashir who is facing criminal charges by the international criminal court for the deaths that took place in Darfur. But his administration has strongly denied those charges. The Darfur conflict led to the death of more than 300, 000 people and forced over two million people from their homes. The elections come as part of the 2005 peace deal that ended a two-decade civil war between north and south Sudan.

Sadiq promised to settle the Darfur conflict and “dismantle totalitarianism” in Sudan. The Sudanese parliament ratified a key law in December setting up the planned 2011 referendum on southern independence after northern and southern leaders overcame a dispute that had threatened to derail the peace deal. Parliament also passed a law for a referendum in the disputed oil-rich region of Abyei on the border between north and south Sudan to let residents decide if they want to remain part of the north or join the south.