Sudan's last elected prime minister

Great-grandson of the notorious `Mad Mahdi'

Sadiq al-Mahdi, who has died of COVID-19 aged 84, was Sudan's last democratically elected prime minister and the great-grandson of Mohammed Ahmed Ibn el-Sayyid Abdullah, the “Mad Mahdi” who routed Anglo-Egyptian forces around Khartoum in 1885 and beheaded Charles Gordon, Britain's most famous general. (Lord Kitchener later desecrated the Mahdi's tomb and took his skull to use as an inkwell.)

Sadiq al-Mahdi, a tall, erect figure in snowwhite robes, inherited his great-grandfather's mantle as leader of the Ansar, a Sufi Islamic movement his ancestor had founded. But he lacked his decisive leadership qualities and his three years at the helm of weak and shifting coalitions ended prematurely in a military coup in June 1989.

He was born at Omdurman on Dec. 25, 1935, the son of Siddiq al-Mahdi, a politician who married his cousin, Rahma Abdullah Jadallah.

After a traditional Muslim education, Sadiq read PPE at St John's College, Oxford.

Following his father's death in 1961 Sadiq al-Mahdi assumed the leadership of the Ansar and in 1964 was elected leader of Sudan's largest opposition party the National Umma Party (NUP).

He served as prime minister twice: first from July 1966 to May 1967, which ended in Ja'far Al-Nimeiri's military coup.

His second, from May 1986 until June 1989, ended when he was ousted in a military coup headed by Omar al-Bashir.

Al-Bashir's coup was said to have been organized with the connivance of Egypt,

Al-Mahdi was under house arrest for almost seven years until he escaped to Eritrea in 1996. He returned to Sudan in 2000 and, though subject to constant harassment, publicly blamed al-Bashir's “misguided policies” for creating the crisis in Darfur. In 2010 he unsuccessfully challenged al-Bashir for the presidency.

In October al-Mahdi's family revealed that he had tested positive for COVID-19.

Sadiq al-Mahdi was married twice, and had 10 children. His daughter, Mariam, is deputy leader of the NUP.

One of his nephews is Alexander Siddig, a Sudanese-born British actor best known for his roles in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and in the Game of Thrones series.

Sadiq al-Mahdi