National Congress (Sudan)

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The National Congress (Arabic: المؤتمر الوطني; transliterated: al-Mo'tamar al-Watany) is the governing official political party of Sudan. It was created in 1998 by certain elements in the former National Islamic Front (NIF) organization, as well as other politicians, as a legal political party. A splinter group, the Popular National Congress Party, broke off of the National Congress Party in 2000 after disagreements between President Omar al-Bashir and former Speaker of the Parliament and radical Islamist ideologue Hassan al-Turabi.

The National Congress Party has wide grassroots support throughout Northern Sudan and its members were recently elected as heads of the Lawyers Union and heads of most of North Sudan's agricultural unions in elections that were widely accepted as transparent.

The National Congress Party also has a notable Southern Sudanese membership as manifested through the inclusion of Southern National Congress members in South Sudan's government. The National Congress southern sector is headed by former Vice President Moses Machar and Southern Presidential Advisor Riak Gai Kok.

At the last legislative elections, December 2000, the party won 355 out of 360 seats. At the presidential elections of the same year, its candidate Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir won 86.5 % and was re-elected.

The National Congress Party is the main partner in the power-sharing agreement that is part of the comprehensive peace accords that brought the Sudan civil war to an end and were signed in January 2005. The other main partner in the power sharing agreement is the formerly rebel Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement. The National Congress party head is Omar al-Bashir. In 2005 it merged with the Alliance of Working Peoples' Forces Party of former President Gaafar Nimeiry, who had won 9.6 % in Sudan's last Presidential elections.