National Congress Party (Sudan) in the context of 1969 Sudanese coup d'état

Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir (born 1 January 1944) is a Sudanese former military officer and politician who served as Sudan's head of state under various titles from 1989 until 2019, when he was deposed in a coup d'état. He was subsequently imprisoned, tried and convicted on multiple corruption charges.

Al-Bashir came to power in 1989 when, as a brigadier general in the Sudanese Army, he led a group of officers in a military coup that ousted the democratically elected government of prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi after it began negotiations with rebels in the south; he subsequently replaced President Ahmed al-Mirghani as head of state. He was elected three times as president in elections that have been under scrutiny for electoral fraud. In 1998, al-Bashir founded the National Congress Party, which remained the dominant political party in the country until 2019. In March 2009, al-Bashir became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), for allegedly directing a campaign of mass killing, rape, and pillage against civilians in Darfur. On 11 February 2020, the Government of Sudan announced that it had agreed to hand over al-Bashir to the ICC for trial.

The Council of States (Arabic: مجلس الولايات السوداني, Maǧlis al-Wilāyāt) was the upper house of the National Legislature of Sudan from 2005 to 2019. It was established as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which aimed to end the long-standing civil war between the Sudanese government and rebel groups in southern Sudan. The CPA provided for the creation of a bicameral National Legislature, consisting of the Council of States and the National Assembly.

The National Legislature, which includes the Council of States, was dissolved on 11 April 2019 following the overthrow of President Omar al-Bashir and his National Congress Party in a military coup.

On 6 April 1985, Defence Minister Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab seized power from President Gaafar Nimeiry in a coup d'état. Not long after, on 30 June 1989, Lieutenant General Omar al-Bashir, with instigation and support from the National Islamic Front (NIF), overthrew the short lived government in a coup d'état where he ruled as president with the National Congress Party (NCP) until his fall in 11 April 2019. During Bashir's rule, also referred to as Bashirist Sudan, or as they called themselves the al-Ingaz regime, he was re-elected three times while overseeing the independence of South Sudan in 2011. His regime was criticized for human rights abuses, atrocities and genocide in Darfur and allegations of harboring and supporting terrorist groups (most notably during the residency of Osama bin Laden from 1992 to 1996) in the region while being subjected to United Nations sanctions beginning in 1995, resulting in Sudan's isolation as an international pariah.

The Sudanese Socialist Union (abbr. SSU; Arabic: الاتحاد الاشتراكي السوداني, romanized: Al-Ittihad Al-Ishtiraki As-Sudaniy) was a political party in Sudan. The SSU was the country's sole legal party from 1971 until 1985, when the regime of President Gaafar Nimeiry was overthrown in a military coup.

Today the Sudanese Socialist Democratic Union (SSDU), the successor party to the SSU, exists as a registered political party in Sudan. Until 2018, it was led by Professor Dr. Fatima Abdel Mahmoud, who was Sudan's first female minister during the presidency of Gaafar Nimeiry as well as a former member of the National Congress Party. Professor Dr. Fatima Abdel Mahmoud was the first woman to contest the presidency of Sudan in the 2010 general election.