The Sudan: A Post for a Poet

It took seven years, but last week Mohammed Ahmed Mahgoub was finally sworn in as the Sudan's Prime Minister. Back in 1958, the conservative coalition parties, Umma and National Union, had just agreed privately to name Mahgoub Prime Minister when General Ibrahim Abboud staged his takeover, and instead of heading a Cabinet, Mahgoub spent seven months in jail.

But General Abboud was overthrown in a coup last year, and recent elections held in the Moslem north (TIME, May 28) were convincingly won by the conservative coalition led by 29-year-old, Oxford-educated Economist Sadik el Mahdi, the great-grandson of the famed Mahdi...

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