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.

South Sudan: No power-sharing without political reform

Power-sharing, on the other hand, is likely to mean a return to a status quo ante – with Salva Kiir and Riek Machar as President and Vice President master-minding a sharing of posts down the ranks. Understandably, the very suggestion of power-sharing as a solution evokes cynicism. When asked by the New York Times how he imagines the current crisis in South Sudan to end, Jok Madut Jok, one of the country’s leading intellectuals, answered with obvious resignation, referring to President Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar: “The two men will eventually sit down, resolve their issues, laugh for the cameras, and the thousands of civilians who have died will not be accounted for.” Without political reform, reconciliation and power-sharing will more than likely be a dress rehearsal for another crisis. The alternative would combine meaningful political reform with reconciliation and power-sharing. Reconciliation without political reform would be no more than window dressing. The difference between power-sharing in end-of-apartheid South Africa and in post-CPA South Sudan is the difference between meaningful and cosmetic reconciliation.

About Post Author