The SPLM Shenanigans: Reuniting or Reinventing Won’t “Angelise” It
3 min readBy Malith Alier, Juba
The fact that the SPLM is a sole player in our political landscape with no formidable foe makes it complacent at every angle. East or west, south or north, the ruling SPLM spends the petrodollars on matters that have no value to the South Sudanese nation.
The recent trip to Arusha, Tanzania is a case in point. Hadn’t the SPLMs’ members been to Ethiopia under the invitation of both the Ethiopian and the South African ruling parties? Had not Ramaphosa, both deputy President and chairman of ANC come to South Sudan to assist the struggling SPLM in its death throes?
The outcome of the previous intra-SPLMs meetings in Addis has not been made public by anyone among the three tentacles of the famous soon to be infamous party. Even the term intra-SPLM does not make meaning to the suffering masses in the country. If the mutant SPLMs were genuine in the endeavour to reorganise or work for reunion as envisaged, then they should have included the SPLM-DC led by Lam Akol in the “trialogue.” The three SPLMs of Kiir, Riek and Pagan are already like oil and water.
It is said that the SPLMs, it is no longer a single SPLM, signed a declaration for reunion. The reunion roadmap was also meant for safeguarding the territorial integrity of the country.
On the other, the appended signatures of Adwok, Pagan and Awet to an obscure document won’t be honoured now or in the future. If the “original” SPLM, original in the sense that it formed a single entity on the assumption of power through the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) in 2005 did not honour its party documents in forms of party Constitution, Code of Conduct and finally its Manifesto, who in their right mind think that it will respect the Arusha document. The signed document belongs to Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) and will therefore, be in the archives of that party only in Arusha.
Further, it’s common knowledge that the country’s Constitution has been violated multiple times under the watch of the very SPLM. The complacent party wrote, passed and promulgated the Transitional Constitution only as a smoke screen.
It is surprising that some quarters in the country including some civil society organisations have welcome the prospect of SPLMs reunion. Mm, they will be in for a shock.
The best thing the neighbouring countries can do which I believed will be supported by all south Sudanese is to recommend the SPLMs proceed to form four parties as follow:
SPLM-Kiir
SPLM-Riek
SPLM-Pagan
and finally, SPLM-Lam
This is because nobody won’t let go the tag called SPLM and its Oyee slogan.
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