The rubber stamp parliament
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By Zechariah Manyok Biar
June 11, 2013 - The parliament of the Republic of Sudan is reported to
have approved President Bashir’s decision to shut down the oil flow
from South Sudan. According to Sudan Tribune news, June 11, 2013, the
Sudanese Parliament described President Bashir’s decision as
"absolutely right." All the MPs signed up to the approval, except only
one MP.
This kind of decision shows you that the Parliament of the Republic of
Sudan is a rubber stamp Parliament. It is not only this time that this
Parliament rubber stamped controversial decisions single-mindedly made
by President Bashir. Let us see few examples of this rubber stamp
decisions.
In April, 2012 after President Bashir described South Sudanese as
insects, the Sudanese Legislative Assembly members rushed to their
work and passed a resolution in which they described South Sudan as an
enemy state. Part of their statement said, “We consider the government
of South Sudan an enemy and Sudanese state institutions must treat it
as such” (ST, April 16, 2012).
The Speaker of Parliament added this to march President Bashir’s
rhetoric: "We declare that we will confront the [Sudan People
Liberation Movement] SPLM until we end its rule of the South, and will
work to gather our resources to realize this aim."
We in South Sudan thought those statements were made with serious
political considerations. We also expected those statements to be
reversed with serious political considerations, if there was a reason
to do so.
We were, however, wrong in our political understanding of how
political decisions are made in the Sudan. When President Bashir
announced later that he had agreed with his counterpart President Kiir
to work together to implement the Cooperation Agreements, the Sudanese
Legislators rushed to work and ratified the Agreements.
What was interesting in the ratification process was that the Sudanese
Legislators never amended their April’s resolutions of the same year
in which they labeled South Sudan as the enemy state.
To make matters even more amusing, the Speaker who said in April, 2012
that his country would confront the SPLM until it ended the SPLM rule
in South Sudan said this in October of the same year: "The agreement
institutes for a new phase between the two countries and puts them
before a historical responsibility that necessitates building of trust
and reaffirming determination to implement what has been agreed upon"
(Xinhua, October 17, 2012).
Before the implementation of the Agreements could take place,
President Bashir gave more conditions that delayed the implementation.
But the Parliament that is the supreme lawmaker in the country did not
even say a word about the delay of the policy that they had ratified.
Again, when President Bashir decided earlier in 2013 that it was time
for South Sudan oil to start flowing through his country, the
Parliament signed up for the decision without any question.
About six months later, President Bashir single-mindedly decided that
he had ordered his Minister of Petroleum to shut down the oil flow
from South Sudan. There is no report showing that he had first
consulted the Parliament which ratified the Agreements as the supreme
lawmaker of the land. But the Parliament called the decision
"absolutely right."
All these make you conclude that the Sudanese Parliament is just a
rubber stamp of what President Bashir decides. It would, however, be
unrealistic to expect them to do otherwise under a dictator. So, we
can just ignore whatever they say because it does not carry any
meaning. What President Bashir decides is what matters.
Zechariah Manyok Biar can be reached at [email protected]
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