National Islamic Front
 |
|---|
|
|
The National Islamic Front is the political organization that controls Sudan. It supports the maintenance of a Islamic state run on sharia and rejects the concept of a secular state. While its legal front is the political party, the National Congress, there is little actual distinction between the two. It is nominally led by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The NIF has shown itself to be both politically adept and ruthless in its use of violence, in particular in the internal conflicts of the Second Sudanese Civil War and the Darfur conflict, as well in the provisioning of proxy forces such as the Lord's Resistance Army, West Nile Bank Front and Uganda National Rescue Front II against Uganda.
Created in the 1960s as an Islamist student group, it was known as the Islamic Charter Front. From 1964 to 1969 it was headed by Hassan al-Turabi after the overthrow of the government of President Ibrahim Abboud. In this period, the ICF managed to eject the Communist Party from the parliament. In 1969 the government was overthrown by General Gaafar al-Nimeiry in a coup d'état, after which the members of the Islamic Charter Front were placed under house arrest or fled the country. For a 15 year period from this point, the organization was called the Muslim Brotherhood after the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. In 1979, when Nimeiry sought an accommodation with the Muslim Brotherhood, Turabi was invited to become Attorney-General, a position in which he pushed for the strict application of sharia in 1983. Throughout the Cold War, the organization benefitted from the anti-Communist support of the United States and the pro-Islam support of Saudi Arabia.
In 1985, the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood was charged with sedition, prompting them to carry out a coup against President Nimeiry. After gaining power, Turabi renamed the organization the National Islamic Front. The NIF's financial strength and backing among university graduates gave them only ten percent of the vote, and a third place position, in the 1986 elections. In 1989, the NIF overthrew the elected government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi. While some NIF leaders, including Turabi, were placed under house arrest following the coup as part of the internal power struggle that brought President Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir to power, they were soon released. The NIF created the National Congress Party as a legal cover. Sources disagree as to whether or not the NIF has been subsumed under the National Congress.