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English edition -1st quarter 1999
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The Turabi counterattack
| Marginalized within the governmental party by people close to head
of state general Omar el Bechir, his rival Speaker of Parliament
Hassan
al Turabi has been multiplying visits to the provinces since February
in a bid to make sure of the loyalty of National islamic Front (NF)
local leaders. He seems also to have moved closer to his brother-in-law
Sadiq
al Mahdi, leader of the Umma opposition party and a former
prime minister, by taking advantage of the fact that Bechir and his friends
had encouraged Ahmed al Mahdi, an uncle and longtime rival of Sadiq,
to take the head of the Ansar movement in Sudan’s hinterland, a manoeuvre
which sparked lively reactions. Tens of thousands of Ansar paraded in the
Khartoum streets during the feast of Aid el Kebir, shouting slogans hostile
to the regime and in support of Sadiq. Although an identical street demonstration
had been banned a few months earlier during the feast of Mawlid, the demonstration
was authorised this time apparently thanks to splits within the ruling
regime. The chief of public safety for Khartoum is a Turabi ally and has
not shown excessive official zeal in preventing the street demonstration,
which was in fact an affront to the president.
I.O.N.. - As a result, Sadiq al Mahdi felt himself sufficiently in a position of strength to threaten to walk out of National democratic Front, the opposition front which turned down his suggestion of peace talks with the Khartoum regime under Libyan auspices. Mohammed Osman al Mirghani, the leader of Democratic Unionist Party who is a Sadiq rival and also chairman of NDA, had refused talks in Tripoli on the invitation of Libyan head of state colonel Muammar Kadhafi. In this he had been backed by the remainder’ of AND, notably administrative officials who often are members of Sudanese Communist Party which is very hostile to Libya. |