The DUP wins one hundred and one of two hundred and eighteen seats, but no single party controls a parliamentary majority.

Thirty-six seats go to the Umma traditionalists, thirty to the Sadiq wing, and twenty-five to the two southern parties—SANU and the Southern Front.

The SCP secretary general, Abdel Khaliq Mahjub, also wins a seat.

In a major setback, Sadiq loses his own seat to a traditionalist rival.

Because it lacks a majority, the DUP concludes an alliance with Umma traditionalists, who receive the prime ministership for their leader, Muhammad Ahmad Mahgoub, and four other cabinet posts.

The coalition's program includes plans for government reorganization, closer ties with the Arab world, and renewed economic development efforts, particularly in the southern provinces.

The Muhammad Ahmad Mahgoub government also accepts military, technical, and economic aid from the Soviet Union.

Sadiq al Mahdi's wing of the Umma forms the small parliamentary opposition.

When it refuses to participate in efforts to complete the draft constitution, already ten years overdue, the government retaliates by closing the opposition's newspaper and clamping down on pro-Sadiq demonstrations in Khartoum.