Ali Osman Taha

Ali Osman Mohammed Taha (Arabic: علي عثمان محمد طه, also transliterated "Othman" or "Uthman") (born 1 January 1944) is a Sudanese politician who was First Vice President of Sudan from July 2011 to December 2013. Previously he was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1993 to 1995, First Vice President from 1995 to January 2005, and Second Vice President from August 2005 to July 2011. He is a member of the National Congress Party.

Taha is a graduate of the Faculty of Law at the University of Khartoum. He then set up a private law practice before being appointed as a judge and then entering politics as a member of Sudan's parliament in the 1980s.

Taha, along with John Garang, is credited as being the co-architect of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement which brought Africa's longest civil war to an end on 9 January 2005. The agreement capped an eight-year process to stop the civil war, which since 1983 had taken 2 million lives. Starting in December 2003 Taha and Garang met numerous times to finalize the peace agreement.

Taha heads the Sudanese side of the Sudanese-Egyptian High Committee, which was headed on the Egyptian side by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and includes Ministers from both countries and aims to foster cooperation between the two countries.

Omar al-Bashir reappointed Taha as Second Vice President in May 2010 in spite of speculations that he would be replaced by a more hard-line NCP member or a Darfurian. Taha was viewed as a moderate figure in the NCP regime and a possible successor to Bashir, although some have suggested that Bashir might have preferred that his successor be a hard-liner.

Taha was arrested on April 11 2019 following the 2019 Sudanese coup d'état.

On May 27, 2020, Sudan’s public prosecution service announced that Taha had tested positive for COVID-19 and was subsequently placed in quarantine.