The Rejoicing Hyenas in South Sudan: Benefiting from Political Miscalculations
5 min readBy Umba Peter, Istanbul, Turkey
October 18, 2015 (SSB) — The world’s youngest nation that became independent in July 2011 is unlucky finding itself in the hands of former rebel army generals. Hopes to benefit from the 2005 peace agreement have been shattered by administrative malpractices such as corruption, nepotism and inability to lead the country in the right direction.
Deviance from governance norms by government officials created favorable environment for all sorts of administrative malpractices while the toothless anti-corruption commission staffed by stooges became and is still part of the malpractices in the country thus constraining the government’s ability to delivery services.
Sparked by a surprise move by the incumbent president sacking his vice Dr. Machar a few days after the country’s second independence anniversary in July 2013, and later by the dissolution of the whole cabinet, South Sudan’s capital Juba saw a brutal armed rivalry between the two protagonists engulfing loyalties on both sides. The conflict spread quickly throughout the country and consumed tens of thousands of lives and displaced millions of people internally and externally. Since then the country remained politically unstable, insecure and economically crippled.
Interestingly the war has created power vacuum and strengthened the president’s powers which in most cases are being misused and abused. Decrees rather than legal constitutional means have become the means of appointing, reappointing and dismissing government officials.
Opportunists continue to benefit from such political gambles and power vacuum by immersing heads into the country’s open barrel of anointing oil while the unlucky ones simply opt for crude means such as joining armed rebellions to fight back against the government hoping to party either alone or together as usual in the same barrel.
In almost all attempts by either the president or governors to restructure their governments (to favor them and their cohorts), their decisions (decrees) often received criticism from citizens, civil society and faith based organizations, regional bodies as well as international organizations such as the United Nations, African Union and United States.
Recently in October 2015, president Kiir issued a contradicting decree dissolving the existing ten states and creating new twenty eight others – a move that not only received domestic criticism but also regional and international condemnation because it is perceived as a violation of the peace agreement signed in August 2015 by the government and its challenger the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement in Opposition.
Such political gamble demonstrates the loss of vision and governance and leadership failure thus putting the country on risk of further political turbulence and possible anarchy.
To describe South Sudanese politicians as hyenas is therefore plausible due to their chronic desperation for positions and resources. As such politicians in South Sudan should be regarded entrepreneurs of war who derive their happiness from the death, misery and suffering of the people they ought to represent.
The president’s recent chess gamble by taking away the meat from the hyenas’ mouths leaving them wondering whether the meat will be put back or not is highly risky considering the fragility of the situation in which the peace agreement is supposed to be implemented. The fact that the next move by the hungry hyenas is unknown should therefore be well understood.
Nonetheless, the president and his best man’s U-turn and peddling to a new direction (the rubber stamp parliament) looks well if and only if they succeed to get the decree refashioned. Whether this is possible or not also raises further issues. It is thus plausible to state that the president and his mis-advisors have come to their senses and realized how dumb the decree is.
It should also be noted that creating twenty eight states is not only a violation of the peace agreement neither does it answer the calls for federalism as Majok Akol Dhieu claims in his article published by Paanluelwel.com blog. Federalism is not about the number of states, and if at all it is as one may think, there is yet no claim that Equatorians and Dr. Machar’s group have agreed to a definite number of states and that the decree is against their wish.
In fact these recent moves to create more states as well as dissolving the SPLM structures resemble to the decree that unplugged Dr. Machar as VP in 2013 and later punching the whole cabinet on the nose. Based on the political culture of South Sudanese politicians, these recent moves, if not handled well can create an environment ripe for political misbehavior by some political actors who will miss reappointment to the new states and structures.
As usual, misguided appointments that will end up benefitting particular individuals is undisputable, but also the possibility of deviance from legal means of ascending to political office exists.
However, there is a “window of opportunity” to re-do or un-do the decree to be effective by taking advantage of unconstitutionalism to posture. If they gamble it well, it might or not result to a new positive outcome.
Umba Peter, South Sudanese conflict studies MA student at Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey
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