The Sudanese political parties 

 

Establishment :

The principles of all Sudanese parties in Sudan before independence were based on one main idea , which was the relationship between the Sudan and Egypt : was it a relation of unity , confederation , or independence ?

Accordingly, the then Sudanese public opinion was divided into the following main groups:

1/ A group that believed in the necessity of founding any link between Sudan and Egypt, no matter wither that link was a federal union, unity, or integration we can refer to the group as the Unionist Parties.

2/ A group that demanded independence of Sudan without any link Egypt other than the links between the countries of full sovereignty, we can refer to this group as the independence parties.

3/ A third group appeared after the independence of Sudan including ideological and tribal parties

 

The Unionist Parties:

The pre- independence Unionist parties of Sudan were as follows:

“The Unionist Parties “, “the Al Ahrar Party “, “Al-Ashiga party “, and the “Unity of the Nile – valley Party “.

In 1952, these unionist parties were merged together to form what was then known as “National Unionist Party “ .

Following Sudan’s independence , the people’s Democratic party , seceded from the Unionist National Party to from the Democratic National Party “, as a result of merging both parties : the Unionist National party .

 

The independence parties:

What those parties had in common was their rejection to establishing any political link between Egypt and Sudan. they did not accept neither relations of Unity , nor confederations between the tow countries , they were create by the Government of Sudan , that is the say by the then English Administration , that was why they did not attract the Sudanese people who believed that the English Administration did not work for the interest of Sudan .

All those parties were short – lived ones except the Umma party, which was a sectarian one.

The other independence parties were: the “Nationalists Party “, Umma party, the Republican socialist party. the ideological parties were : the Islamic charter front , which later changed into the Islamic National Front , in addition to the Sudanese communist party , there were also the tribal blocs such as “ Beja conference “ , and the “ Union of Nuba mountain “ , which were dissolved by May Coup 1969 .

During the parliamentary elections of 1953, there was only one political party in southern Sudan, which was Al-Ahrar southern party.

But when the elections of 1968 were held , the number of the political parties of southern reached 8 , including Union [ SANU ] ( two wings ) , southern Front , the Nile , the Democratic south , Unity .