By Fred Oluoch, NAIROBI Kenya
South Sudan is staring at another failed attempt to form a transitional
government on February 22 after all the opposition parties rejected calls for
arbitration on the differences over number of states.
Both the Sudanese People’s Liberation
Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) led by Dr Riek Machar and the South Sudan
Opposition Alliance (SSOA) led by Dr Lam Akol, have rejected suggestions by
South African Deputy President David Mabuza to have the matter go for
arbitration for 90 days, which would be long after the formation of the
transitional government.
Mr Mabuza, after failing to have the
parties agree to the number of states, has proposed to refer the matter for
arbitration to Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad), regional body
that deals with peace, and the African Union.
The proposal entails referring the
issue of the number of states to the arbitration committee to comprise the
African Union’s C 5—South Africa as Chair, Algeria, Chad, Nigeria and Rwanda—
the three Troika countries — US, the UK and Norway, and Igad Special Envoys for
South Sudan. The committee was to complete its task in 90 days that will go
into the transitional period.
Angelina Teny, the wife of Dr Machar
has maintained that the two sticky issues; the security arrangements and the number
of states and boundaries must be addressed before the formation of the
transitional cabinet.
She argued that the transitional
National Assembly cannot be formed without having addressed the issue of the
number of states as well the Council of States — which is linked to the number
of states.
President Salva Kiir is pushing for
the retention of current 32 states while the opposition argue that the states
were created unilaterally contrary to the 2015 agreement that was based on 10
states.
Minister for Information, Michael
Makuei Lueth, who is also the government spokesperson, maintained that the
number of states shall forever remain 32 and can only be reduced by the people
and not the opposition.
SSOA said the recent meeting in Juba
convened by the Igad and which was chaired by Mr Mabuza, had made a lot of
progress and a consensus emerged between the parties on adopting the 24 former
districts in Southern Sudan as States for the transitional period.
The SSOA said the proposal presented
by Mr Mabuza bears no relation to the previous discussions, in which the idea
was for them to work out a compromise proposal that they can table before the
parties to consider.
“We are for the formation of the Transitional
Government on time, but only after resolving the issue of the number and
boundaries of the states and concluding the formation and deployment of the
Necessary Unified Forces (NUF),” said SSOA in a statement.
Last year, the Independent Boundaries
Commission agreed to re-establish the 10 state system but the decision was
supported only by six South Sudanese while the peace agreement implies that
seven of the 10 South Sudanese members vote with the majority. The 15-member
body includes five appointed by the government of President Kiir, five by the
opposition groups and five by Igad.
Peter Kleto Aharanya, the SPLM IO in
Tanzania, said that the fact that Mr Mabuza wanted the transitional government
to be formed before the dispute over number of states is settled means he has
agreed with the government position to maintain the 32 states, and has taken
sides.
"The 32 states were created by a
presidential decree, not through a referendum and therefore, creation of more
states when you cannot even develop the 10 states is an unwise decision,” said
Mr Aharanya.
Igad had released a programme on
consolations on the number of states and their boundaries from January 13 to 16
in Juba, and on January 15, all parties presented their positions on the number
of states.
According to James Oryema, the
SPLM-IO representative in Kenya, all the parties had moved closer to 24+1 with
exception of the government that insisted on maintaining the 32 states. This
meant that the country would be divided into 24 states (former districts) plus
the capital Juba that was to remain neutral.
No comments:
Post a Comment