South Sudan: Political Parties are Guided by Manifestos and Principles
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political Bureau: senior members of the ruling SPLM party
By Pal Chol Nyan, Juba, South Sudan
Friday, November 22, 2019 (PW) — One of my colleagues, an editor, wrote in his column that he would follow a Party with manifesto and ideologies unlike those who follow relatives. He is and was dead right. That is what is supposed to be done in normal circumstances and where there is a rule of law.
I have personally tried that with zeal. I would have been a failure if I had not realized and quit to do my own things according to what my conscience tells me and with the help of the pieces of valuable advice from friends and acquaintances.
I was a target of hatred even by people with whom I have not had any vendetta just because I was considered a good boy in the camp of the politicians. Let me advise you, my brothers and sisters in South Sudan, do not follow uncles and aunties on the basis of relationship. You would end up a failure or otherwise. Follow them because of the good they do to and for the people.
Do you know what uncles and aunties do? They teach you to be court jesters, tribalistic in thinking, indecisive and have more enemies than friends; in the sense that you will at times be forced to quarrel just because something negative might have been said about him or her.
When the people’s Movement was formed in 1983, there was a Manifesto known as the SPLM/A Disciplinary Laws and Penal Code. It served like a constitution governing the Liberation struggle. As you would recall, people from all walks of life joined it voluntarily and simply because they were satisfied about what it stood and was fighting for. They were not following her Leader as a person.
I rarely go to political public rallies because they are more often than not,
about praising individuals holding prominent positions and chanting Party
slogans rather than educating the people on the objectives, goals and
principles. Parties must have programs which should be translated into
actions but not lip-services. I have been saying that if following an uncle or
Party of your tribesman is what gives you riches, let me starve to death and
stay without work, period!
I am comfortable without a Party and would probably continue to be so. I don’t want to sing songs of political praises or chant slogans under duress like what I always see in that blazing heat of the sun; where you end up disappointed and left to your own devices.
The politicians accustomed to switching political allegiance do so for jobs but not because of the conviction they may have with that Party doctrine. Some join because of an English adage that” if you cannot defeat them, join them.
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