Former president of Sudan dies in Riyadh
Former Sudanese President Field Marshal Abdul Rahman Siwar Al Dahab died yesterday at the Military Hospital in Riyadh. He was 83.
He became a prominent figure when president Jaafar Numairi appointed him Chief of Staff, and then Minister of Defence and general commander of the armed forces in 1984.
Al Dahab became president of Sudan on April 6, 1985 following a coup that ousted Numairi, who had been president since 1969.
When Al Dahab took power, he promised to hold elections in a year’s time, a pledge few believed in a country exhausted by civil war. However, in 1986 Africa’s largest country by land area held multiparty elections and a civilian government took office.
Described as a military man without any political ambitions, Al Dahab was born in 1934 in the city of Omdurman. He entered a military academy when he was 20 and graduated four years later as a second lieutenant.
After several military postings in Sudan and abroad, he was named in 1984 defence minister and chief of staff of Sudan’s 60,000-man army.
Sudan’s current president, Omar Al Bashir, who has been in power for nearly 30 years, has previously said he will step down in 2020 and has not explicitly stated his intention to run again.