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Sudan
Index
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was similarly based on a
religious order, the Khatmiyyah organization. Ever since the
Khatmiyyah opposed the Mahdist movement in the 1880s, it has been
a rival of the Ansar. Although the Khatmiyyah was more broadly
based than the Ansar, it was generally less effective
politically. Historically, the DUP and its predecessors were
plagued by factionalism, stemming largely from the differing
perspectives of secular-minded professionals in the party and the
more traditional religious values of their Khatmiyyah supporters.
The DUP leader and hereditary Khatmiyyah spiritual guide since
1968, Muhammad Uthman al Mirghani, tried to keep these tensions
in check by avoiding firm stances on controversial political
issues. In particular, he refrained from public criticism of
Nimeiri's September Laws so as not to alienate Khatmiyyah
followers who approved of implementing the sharia. In the 1986
parliamentary elections, the DUP won the second largest number of
seats and agreed to participate in Sadiq al Mahdi's coalition
government. Like Sadiq al Mahdi, Mirghani felt uneasy about
abrogating the sharia, as demanded by the SPLM, and supported the
idea that the September Laws could be revised to expunge the "unIslamic " content added by Nimeiri.
By late 1988, however, other DUP leaders had persuaded
Mirghani that the Islamic law issue was the main obstacle to a
peaceful resolution of the civil war. Mirghani himself became
convinced that the war posed a more serious danger to Sudan than
did any compromise over the sharia. It was this attitude that
prompted him to meet with Garang in Ethiopia where he negotiated
a cease-fire agreement based on a commitment to abolish the
September Laws. During the next six months leading up to the June
1989 coup, Mirghani worked to build support for the agreement,
and in the process emerged as the most important Muslim religious
figure to advocate concessions on the implementation of the
sharia. Following the coup, Mirghani fled into exile and he has
remained in Egypt. Since 1989, the RCC-NS has attempted to
exploit DUP factionalism by coopting party officials who
contested Mirghani's leadership, but these efforts failed to
weaken the DUP as an opposition group.
Data as of June 1991
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