Sudan, 1985 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
The dataset records an event coded as an attempted military coup in Sudan on 25 September 1985 during the rule of the Transitional Military Council, the body led by Field Marshal Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab that had taken power in the April 1985 coup which overthrew the longtime dictator Gaafar Nimeiry. That transitional council governed Sudan for a single year, having pledged to restore democracy, and it presided over a fragile and contested period marked by the ongoing civil war in the south, economic crisis, and jockeying among political forces and within the military itself over the shape of the promised civilian government. A coup attempt or plot in September 1985 came within that unstable interregnum and did not derail the transition.
Swar al-Dahab kept his promise, and after elections in April 1986 the council handed power to a civilian government led by Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, a rare voluntary return of power by a military regime, before Sudan's democratic experiment was again cut short by Omar al-Bashir's Islamist coup in 1989.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
62509251985
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: The Transitional Military Council under Swar al-Dahab weathered the September 1985 plotting and handed power to civilians in 1986.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →