Machar rejects allocation of South Sudan’s state governors, calls for RJEMC’s intervention

he SPLM-IO has rejected the allocation of state governors by President Salva Kiir pointing that the decision ignored the prominence of the parties and was not taken by consensus.

President Kiir on Thursday issued a statement saying that the presidency in a meeting chaired by President Kiir and after “thorough deliberations” and “in the spirit of collegial decision making” decided to give the SPLM-IG six states, the SPLM-IO three states and SSOA one state.

According to the statement the SPLM-IG takes Central Equatoria State, Eastern Equatoria State, Lakes State, Warrap State, Northern Bahr El Ghazal State and Unity State. The SPLM-IO takes Jonglei State, Western Bahr El Ghazal State and Western Equatoria State while SSOA takes the Upper Nile state. The OPP did obtain a state.

Following the meeting, the First Vice President Riek Machar addressed a letter to Augustino Njoroge the head of the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (R-JMEC) informing him of his rejection of this decision and urging his intervention after pointing to several violations committed in this process.

The article dealing with the power-sharing at the level of states and local government “gives the Parties the competence to allocate the States and Counties and not the Presidency. The article also makes it clear that the prominence of Parties in each State must influence the choice of the States,” said Machar in his letter seen by Sudan Tribune.

The First Vice President further said the allocation of the States was decided by the “President and not a decision taken by consensus,” he disclosed.

He further underlines that “It does not put into consideration the relative prominence of each Party has in each of the respective State or county. In this case, neither SSOA nor ITGONU has prominence in Upper Nile state more than SPLM (IO)”.

Machar went to pinpoint to another violation saying that the PPO alliance has been excluded from the power-sharing at the state level as they have to get a state in line with the peace agreement.

The rule of the power-sharing ratio at the state level provides that the SPLM-IG gets 55%, SPLM-IO 27%, SSOA 10% and OPP 08%.

However, the SPLM-IG said they have conceded to the demand of the peace partners and accepted to re-establish the 10 states system, so, the other parties have to accept that they obtain six states.

SPLM-IG claims that the government’s 5.5 number of States should be made six, pointing that its share should be more than the parties.

The OPP sources say they are concerned by their exclusion and they are expected to issue a statement on Friday.

Machar concluded his letter to the R-JMEC stressing that Kiir’s decision is also ” a clear rejection of the recommendation made to the Parties by the Interim Chairman of RJMEC” in a letter addressed to the president last April.

In a bid to break the deadlock over states’ allocation, Njoroge convened a consultative meeting of the parties to the peace pact on Friday 27th March.

In a statement issued on 28 March, Njoroge urged them to continue with the spirit of collegiality during the Transitional Period and beyond.

He “also reminded the Parties of the cardinal principles upon which the R-ARCSS is anchored, which include inclusivity, equity, peace and reconciliation, collegiality, relationship and trust-building, justice and fairness, among others,”

(ST)