Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
will compete with 14 registered candidates in the April presidential election.
"The electoral commission has received a total of 15 candidacies for the post of the president of the republic," said Mokhtar al-Assam, the head of Sudan's National Electoral Commission, on Thursday.
The presidential election will be held on April 13, along with parliamentary elections.
Fadl el-Sayed Shuayb, a lawyer who heads the moderate Federal Truth party, and Fatima Ahmed Abdel Mahmoud, a member of the Socialist Union party established by the former president, Gaafar al-Nimeiry, are two of the candidates to be challenging Bashir.
The incumbent president of Sudan has been holding the position for nearly a quarter of a century, since a coup in 1989. He won a new term in office in April 2010.
The
International Criminal Court... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
wants to try the 71-year-old on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Sudan's Darfur region.