PaanLuel Wël Media Ltd – South Sudan

"We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing" By Konstantin Josef Jireček, a Czech historian, diplomat and slavist.

Why South Sudan has exploded in violence

2 min read

This was the dilemma that confronted Salva Kiir. The SPLM was supposed to hold its general convention in 2013 to elect a chairman and the party’s presidential nominee for the 2015 election. The holding of the convention would help to regulate the competition for power that was building among top regime elites. If it were to reaffirm Kiir’s chairmanship of the party, it could also go a long way toward consolidating Kiir’s power vis-à-vis his rivals. But Kiir increasingly feared the possibility that the party might not reelect him as party chairman and would instead swing its support to Machar or Amum, the secretary general. In the face of such a possibility, Kiir maneuvered to undermine the party’s institutions. For example, he refused to call to order party organs in which he might be outvoted, such as the SPLM’s political bureau. He also tried to manipulate the convention rules to prohibit the secret ballot.Finally, he dismantled party structures and postponed the convention indefinitely. In short, Kiir rejected party rule for personal rule. In doing so, he managed to maintain his position as head of the SPLM, at the cost of leaving the power struggle at the apex of the regime unresolved and intensifying his own strategic uncertainty. The cost is that he has now brought South Sudan to the brink of civil war.

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