Salva Kiir exposes his rift with Machar over South Sudan transitional constitution Article Comments (85) Email PrintSave --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 9, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The President of South Sudan’s government, Salva Kiir, has for the first time exposed the ongoing rift between him and his deputy, Riek Machar, over the transitional constitutional that would govern the soon-to-be independent Republic of South Sudan for the next four years starting from July 9. GOSS President Salva Kiir walks with Riek Machar, left, the Vice President, at the Juba International airport on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2011 (AP) South Sudan will formally become independent on July 9 following the overwhelming vote for secession from the north in a self-determination’s referendum conducted in January 2011. This came in accordance with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005 and ended 21 years of civil war between the Sudan government represented by the National Congress Party (NCP) and the ex-rebels, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). The region is in the process of making a transitional constitution to be implemented from July 9, and govern the new Republic of South Sudan for the next four years. However, opposition political parties have expressed their concerns over what they called excessive powers given to the president, including the powers to remove elected governors of the ten states and dissolve the elected parliaments and appoint new members. They also objected to the four years transitional period, preferring 18 to 24 months of its length. Different blocs in the South Sudan’s society including ordinary citizens have expressed their respective criticism of the transitional constitution and presented their proposed amendments to the parliament. In his speech while addressing the Sixth Speakers’ Forum on Wednesday in Juba, which gathered leadership of legislative assemblies across South Sudan’s ten states, the President of the Government of Southern Sudan Salva Kiir accused his deputy, Riek Machar, of running a parallel government within the government. The president in particular accused his deputy of floating a document supporting amendments to the current transitional constitution. Anonymous source present in the meeting told Sudan Tribune that the president was not happy with any proposed amendments in the parliament. The official disclosed that majority of the members of the parliament, which is over 90% SPLM, is not happy with draft document and have proposed amendments to the transitional constitution. He said the president two weeks ago called for SPLM caucus meeting of MPs and explained to them to accept the draft document in its current form without any amendments, but mere rephrasing. “He repeated the same yesterday to the speakers of the ten states,” he said. He said “If there is any point that needs rephrasing, it should be welcomed.” The source also confirmed that the Vice President Riek Machar has always opposed to some of the provisions in the transitional constitution. “The Vice President during the meeting of the SPLM Political Bureau on the draft document last month proposed several amendments, including removal of president’s powers to dismiss elected officials and replace them with new appointments,” he said. “He also repeated his opposition to the provisions during the meeting of the Council of Ministers, despite the fact that both party and cabinet meetings passed the document as it came from the technical committee,” the source added. Kiir argued that his Vice President, Machar, participated in the meetings of the party and executive and should have not come up again with a parallel document to the parliament. “The Vice President is a member of the Executive. And he was in the SPLM Political Bureau discussion as the Vice Chairman of the SPLM, when this Constitution was passed by the Party,” he was quoted as saying. “He was also present in the Council of Ministers, and participated in the deliberations when the ministers discussed this.” When President Kiir received a copy of the said Vice President’s “Constitution”, he instructed his legal advisor to “go through the points raised” in the document, against what was resolved by the Council of Ministers. Kiir said it contradicted the resolutions of the Council of Ministers. He said the amendments proposed by the Vice President would be disregarded. “We put it aside, that this [is] something that cannot really continue to go to the Assembly because it would derail the process of people talking about the Constitution,” adding that the document was also circulated. “This shows that there is parallelism. You cannot identify. You cannot really say, is there one government or are there more than one governments?” Kiir also complained against many proposed amendments to the transitional from different groups and blocks. The other floating amendments include women amended constitution, federal constitution, constitution from the Democratic Forum, Anti Corruption Commission document, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning amended document, Leader of the Opposition Constitution, 18 Political Parties Constitution and the Persons with Disabilities Constitution are the other floating documents. "If we drive with this full speed, I believe we will not reach our destination. We will crash in the middle,” he warned. He warned the parliament against their division over the transitional constitution. “You’re not here as tribes. You’re building a nation, and building a nation is above any tribe,” he said. “And any tribal grouping will never take us anywhere." Mr. Kiir further said there were those who display unity and nationalism at day time, but turn into tribalists at night. He told the speakers of the ten states, also attended by the Speaker of South Sudan parliament, James Wani Igga, that the proposed Constitution should be considered as a temporary amendment for four years and not a permanent Constitution and would therefore be amended during the four-year transitional period and passed in 2015. (ST) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JFD info" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. 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