Making Sense of President Kiir’s Newly Restructured Cabinet

By PaanLuel Wël, Juba City, South Sudan

President Kiir’s highly anticipated new restructured cabinet is out, with, at least so far, 19 cabinet ministers and 10 deputies, making a total of 29 cabinet members, in addition to the President and his yet-to-be appointed deputy. Study the analysis below in comparison to the previous cabinet that was replaced by this new one.

THE NEWLY RESTRUCTURED CABINET OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH SUDAN:

(A)  List of the new Cabinet Ministers

(B)  List of the New Deputy Ministers

(C) Summary of cabinet distribution at the Regional Level

(D) Summary of cabinet distribution at the State Level 

(E)  Summary of cabinet distribution According to the Major Political Forces in the Republic of South Sudan

Let me say something about the last part on political forces in the Republic of South Sudan. For the uninitiated and political novices in the fluid interplay of power politics in the Republic of South Sudan, the last part, Part (E), may appear puzzling if not out-rightly subversive. Nonetheless, it is the practical, real aspect of and to it. There are four major political forces in the Republic of South Sudan: first is the Dinka, second the Nuer, third the Greater Equatoria and the Fourth Forces are the minority groups such as the Murle, the Shilluk, the Anyuak, the Fertit, the Luo among others. Cabinet selection and other touchy national undertakings should be based on the reality of the four major political forces because disgruntlement on or contentment with any decision taken from J-1 is invariably rationalise on the extent to which the interests of these political forces are taken care of according to their proportional national population. This is the true meaning of justice, of fairness and the essence of equality. Anything else is just but a smokescreen, a dangerous recipe for national disaster.

Take for instance how decisions are made and taken in J-1. Have you ever pondered how on Earth Benydit made his seminal decisions before they are decreed? I mean, what guide his political decisions and actions and how do we judge his pronouncements: based on what? Merit and Competence you may venture but what determine merit and competence in a country like South Sudan? Corruption. If merit is about quality education and enviable CV, then it is all determined by money and connections. Who has money and connections? The 75 Mafia. Merit and Competence is therefore another way to feed and nourish the beast of corruption because if you are not VERY corrupt like the 75, it is highly unlikely for you to gain veritable MERIT and incontrovertible COMPETENCE. You need money to procure good education and strong, deep connections to gain experience and competence. Unfortunately, the sons and daughters of the most corrupt are the ones going to the best schools because they have the money and would be the one to get the necessary experiences and thus competence because of their daddy/mummy’s connections.

Constitution in its current forms and in whatever form it might later metastasize into is useless because it is not being followed, and worse still, it is irrelevant to our political situation since it is based on an alien notion of power politics. So? So we need to invent a new way, a better stratagem to manage the country, to make seminal political decisions such as cabinet selection; we need a yardstick not just to guide Benydit in his decision-making but also as a benchmark to reproach or praise his actions and pronouncements. We need to identify what tick, what is relevant, local, useful, effective, and generative insofar as our quest for fairness, justice, equality, peace and national harmony is the cornerstone to our economic development, political stability and social prosperity. If fairness, justice, equality, peace and national harmony are to be the solid pillars of our national consciousness, molding and integration, then we must stop burying our head in the sand in the name of making cabinet appointments and other national decisions on the purported rationale of “merit and competence”, which, sadly, in most cases than not, is not even remotely adhered to. It give one person, in the statue of the presidency, unwarranted powers and influence to satiate his unnational whims.

What we need is not democracy per se but REALISM and PRACTICALITY and EFFECTIVENESS. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with the concept of democracy as theoretically conceived, it is simply unrealistic, impractical and ineffective in South Sudan and across Sub-Saharan Africa for that matter. It has been a monumental failure since the 1960s. It needs to be Africanized, localized, South-Sudanized, negotiated, reformed, re-channeled etc. so as to make it relevant to the socio-political fabric of South Sudan political substructure. One effective, practical and relevant method to do that is to identify the reality of the political situation in South Sudan through the major political forces that drive and influence political wave, direction, depth and intensity. In the just decreed cabinet apportionments, what everyone rushes to find out about individuals picked is neither their competence, the merit of their respective appointments nor their democratic credentials. Rather, it is the political force those individuals hail from: are they Dinkas, Nuers, Greater Equatorians or from the Fourth Forces. This is why the most controversial aspect of the newly restructured cabinet is the appointment of three full cabinet ministers from one county: Bor county. Why is it a big deal? Aren’t they qualified? They are. Weren’t they picked on merit? Possibly all were. But still, something just reeks about the decision: where they hail from.

Put simply, let’s stop the destructive pretense of being a democratic republic of South Sudan where a democratically elected president has the mandate and confidence of the people to make decisions that put food on our table, send our kids to school, fund our economic infrastructure and social amenities, safeguard our national sovereignty and territorial integrity among others. It isn’t working and it will not work. And it has nothing to do with Kiir as the current president or Riek or Pagan or Wani or Nyandeng as the aspirants: it is systemic. It is not about leadership nor about our prized procedural democracy, it is about the impracticality, the irrelevancy and the ineffectiveness of the essence of the current political system.

To hell with procedural democracy that does not bring political stability, economic development and social prosperity; to hell with the constitution that is not worth the paper it is written on; to hell with the presidential system where cabinet appointments become somebody favors to bestow whimsically without due regards to the reality of our political situation based on the four major political forces in the country; to hell with the useless political parties that make mockery of democracy, but above all, to hell with our intellectuals who parrot and ape undigested foreign ideas with no relevancy, practicality and usefulness to the reality of our socio-political and economic growth.

Our political parties should be the Four Political Forces; our political ideology Tribocracy and our economic philosophy Humanistic Socialism—comrades in suffering, in death and in social prosperity.

About Post Author

PaanLuel Wël

administrator

PaanLuel Wël is the founder and editor-in-chief of PaanLuel Wël Media Ltd, a news website that covers news, opinions, analysis, history, culture and literature of South Sudan and the world. Founded in July 2011 by PaanLuel Wël to create a platform for free expression and constructive dialogue, the website features articles from various contributors, including columnists, commentators, poets, authors, activists and academics. PaanLuel Wël believes that media can play a vital role in informing, educating and empowering the people to participate in nation-building and social transformation. He also believes that media can foster a culture of dialogue, tolerance and diversity among different communities and groups, and hopes to inspire and mentor the next generation of South Sudanese writers and journalists.

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