Abdullah Chalil

Abdullah Chalil

Abdullah Chalil ( Arabic عبد الله خليل ʿAbdullāh Chalīl , sometimes written as Khalil ; * 1888 (?); † 1970 ) was Prime Minister of Sudan from 1956 to 1958 .

soldier

Chalil was born in 1888 (according to other sources 1891 or 1892) in the Egyptian region of Nubia and belonged to the Kanuz tribe . In 1910 he joined a Sudanese battalion in the Egyptian army. In 1923 he became one of the leaders of the pro-Egyptian White Flag League . After the Sudan crisis of 1924 between Great Britain and the Kingdom of Egypt , he was accepted into the newly founded Sudanese army in 1925. During his military career he was the first Sudanese to be promoted to Brigadier General (Miralai) . In 1944 he left the army.

Politician

In 1945 he was one of the founding members of the Umma Party and opposed Sudan's membership of Egypt. His aim was to achieve independence in cooperation with Great Britain . He became general secretary of the party and was appointed to the Government Council of Sudan. Since 1948 he was a member of the Legislative Council and took over the Ministry of Agriculture. After Ismail al-Ashari's election victory of the National Unionist Party (NUP) in 1953, Khalil went into the opposition. On January 1, 1956 Sudan became independent. When some NUP leaders left the party, including Ali al-Mirghani , he became Prime Minister of a coalition government on July 5, 1956. From the parliamentary elections in February 1958, his party emerged as the strongest force with 68 of the 173 seats. Because of the instability of the coalition government and an alleged threat of Egyptian intervention, he turned to his former colleagues in the military with a request to take power. On November 17, 1958, a military coup ended his term in office and he initially withdrew from politics. General Ibrahim Abbud became head of state and government .

In the course of 1960 he changed his mind and in November together with Ismail al-Ashari demanded the end of the military government. He lost his pension and was imprisoned on July 11, 1961.

literature

• Ronald Segal: African Profiles . Prestel, Munich 1963.