ABSTRACT
Introduction For all their ostensible commitment to democracy and justice, the Northern ruling establishment turned out, in the period between the demise of the first October government and the rise of Nimeiri, to be inadequate in several counts. To begin with, their unrelenting struggle for power had only one principal objective; to remain perpetually chained to that power. Those who struggle for power generally have an inkling as to what they want to do with power once they obtain it. In the case of Sudan, one would suppose that as a first priority, the attention of political leaders would inescapably be riveted on the actualization of national goals on which nobody disagreed: peace, national unity, political stability, justice for all citizens and sustained development. None of those goals appeared to be a priority for the leadership of this period. Worse and worse, in every step of the way they erected hurdles for themselves that made the attainment of those goals beyond the bounds of possibility. Curiously, the leaders seemed to believe that by the very dint of their being entrenched in office, all would be milk and honey in Sudan. To the supposedly highminded among them, the failure was compounded; not only did they surpass the bestiality of the Abboud regime in their approach to the Southern war, but they also demolished all the groundwork established by the October government as a foundation for a just peace and national reconciliation.
