Omar al-Bashir

KHARTOUM: Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is running for re-election on Monday, seized power in a 1989 Islamist-backed coup and has since weathered international isolation, his country’s dismemberment and economic hardship.

Vilified by many in the West for hosting Al Qaeda in the 1990s and for alleged war crimes in Darfur, he oversaw South Sudan’s secession in 2011.

The 71-year-old has proved to be a cunning political operator.

While indicted twice by the International Criminal Court, he has strengthened his hand at home and abroad.

The parliament granted him greater powers last year and recent diplomatic successes have left him riding high.

Sudan helped broker a deal between Egypt and Ethiopia in March over a dispute about the sharing of waters from the Nile.

Bashir also joined a Saudi-led coalition against Shia rebels in Yemen last month, moving closer to Riyadh and the Gulf.

He is virtually unopposed in the elections as the 15 other candidates are little-known and most opposition parties are boycotting the polls.

He has still toured the country giving speeches, dancing and waving his trademark cane, apparently unaffected by two knee operations last year.

Sporting a thick moustache, the career soldier is well known for his populist touch, insisting on being close to crowds and addressing them in colloquial Sudanese Arabic.

Bashir, who has two wives and no children, was born in 1944 in Hosh Bannaga to an agricultural family, in Sudan’s Arab heartland north of Khartoum.

He entered the military at a young age, rising through the ranks and joining an elite parachute regiment.

He fought alongside the Egyptian army in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

In 1989, then a brigade commander, he led a bloodless coup against the democratically elected government.

He was backed by the National Islamic Front of his then mentor Hassan al-Turabi.

War crimes indictments

Under Turabi’s influence he led Sudan towards a more radical brand of Islam, hosting Al Qaeda and sending jihadist volunteers to fight in the country’s civil war with the south Sudanese.

Washington slapped Sudan with a trade embargo in 1997 over charges that included human rights abuses.

In 1999, Bashir moved to end Sudan’s isolation, ousting Turabi from his inner circle and later surprising his staunchest critics by signing a peace accord in 2005 to end more than two decades of devastating north-south conflict.

When ethnic insurgents launched a rebellion in Darfur in 2003, his government’s decision to unleash the armed forces and allied militia saw him slide back into isolation.

More than 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict, the UN says, and more than two million displaced.

The ICC indicted Bashir in 2009 for war crimes and crimes against humanity and in 2010 for genocide.

Since 2011 he has also faced insurgencies in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, launched by the Southern People’s Liberation Army-North.

In recent years, he has weathered other challenges.

Sudan’s economy suffered badly from the south’s split in 2011, losing most of its vital oil revenues.

Protests that erupted in Khartoum in September 2013 over the lifting of petrol subsidies were brutally suppressed by security forces, with dozens killed.

Bashir tried to smooth tensions over the protests by announcing a “national dialogue” with the opposition to address Sudan’s myriad problems.

But critics said the offer was not sincere, and Bashir was further criticised when he announced in October he was running for re-election after previously denying he would.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2015

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