Why SPLM Party Flag Bearer Endorsements Open Political Space for the 2024 Elections in South Sudan

By Ater Garang Ariath, Juba, South Sudan

Monday, 31 July 2023 (PW) — Sudan’s People Liberation Movement’s (SPLM) recent political stroke in Western Bahr El Ghazal state has opened a political space for dialogue and debate across the country, political lines, and camps. The regional-based political rally was organized by four state governors of the greater Bahr El Ghazal region and the Chief Administrator of the Abyei Area, interestingly attracting massive support from broader politically Informed spectrums.

It’s clearly indicated that SPLM leadership and its cadres are in high political spirit this time to ensure the country and its people are on a new political democratic horizon. Recently, the top high-level of the party worked with senior and low-level cadres to return the party to its original founding core principle of political democratization.

Therefore, officially endorsing President Salva Kiir Mayardit as a sole party presidential candidate for the upcoming anticipated general elections in 2024 vindicates a mature political thinking yard, which calls for full play toward its logical ends. This is a commendable and influential political starting point, which opens a political space for other political parties in the country to carry out similar events while waiting for necessary legal guiding core documents together to conduct free, fair, and credible elections.

The old and new party gatekeepers should now rally behind President Salva Kiir Mayardit faithfully and ensure SPLM return to its original liberation ideals of unity, equality, and progress as guiding fundamental principles to its core tasks as a mass party. What will define President Salva Kiir Mayardit and SPLM in the forthcoming general elections are the circumstances and people nominated to participate along with him on the party tickets in various levels of competition.

It is imperative for party leaders and cadres vying for various positions to prepare themselves highly for any political challenge, whether sought or unsought. Therefore, at the ballot box, the only usable resources are votes, and SPLM must clean its house before taking significant steps towards its political future by ensuring that the hearts and minds of South Sudanese people, both at home and abroad, are secure and locked in with their own SPLM political keys.

The ideal party operations and its entire political work lie in how it fundamentally approaches issues from the grassroots, especially how the party leaders and workers portray the party’s image at all levels of its structures. This challenge cannot and will never be circumvented by the SPLM leaders, especially the national secretariat, other instrumental party organs, and the entire membership and supporters.

And it will be a legacy to them if they decisively embrace concerns and suggestions made by different constituents at lower levels of the party structures. At a personal level, it is imperative to say that Sudan’s People Liberation Movement (SPLM) is the only viable rallying point for South Sudanese unified national political and ideological standpoints, given that it has championed the war of independence.

This is a momentous movement in which party dissidents must seek a common ground for meaningful reforms through frank intra-party dialogue and constructive engagement with the party leadership at all
levels. As the staunchest cadre of SPLM, I have often said to any despair cadre that SPLM and South Sudan as a country are intertwined because Sudan’s People Liberation Movement in South Sudan and South Sudan is SPLM, once South Sudanese forgo SPLM, they equally forgo South Sudan as a sovereign state.

Therefore, the SPLM leaders at all levels of the party structures have a grave responsibility that lies on their shoulders as cadres of this historical party to explore all avenues for the unification of party membership and its leadership. SPLM, as a historical party in the Republic of South Sudan, is the only rallying point per the current political context to organically rejuvenate political activities for advocating the South Sudanese people’s welfare and their interests locally, regionally, and internationally.

It is an exceptional call for all nationalists and patriotic South Sudanese citizens to mobilise their manpower and resources behind the SPLM so that the party realises its ideal mission and ideology of delivering law-based governance in an independent state. Believe me! Without SPLM, there shall be no force through which good leaders focus the needs and desires of the South Sudanese masses.

Sudan’s People Liberation Movement (SPLM) will ultimately be that force if we, as members, return to the party’s ideal objectives.  I am firmly convinced that SPLM is the hard core of us, especially those who are so dedicated to its ideology and programs, of which we must make our membership the most serious business of our lives. Nevertheless, the SPLM is nothing but the vanguard of the people, the active organ of the people always working in the service of the South Sudanese people.

As I underlined, this national duty that binds all of us as members of the SPLM and citizens of this great nation, we should be doing things that will return us to the party’s overarching principles. Likely, we will face well-financed opponents in the upcoming general elections, and this is a time for SPLM party leadership to tour all regions, ten states and administrative areas to amend our political fences at grassroots levels.

The party leadership should initiate an earnest, sincere, and open intra-party dialogue regarding the unity of the party and   South Sudanese people after the meaningless war that deflected necessary efforts and resources for building a peaceful, law-based governance and prosperous country. The ordinary men and women in South Sudan are desperately calling for the unification of their historical party, which brought independence, although some wrong elements from the party structures turned into enemies within by being side-tracked from the party s objectives, vision, and mission.

However, it is imperative for all of us to work hand in hand for the unification of our beloved party by presenting our constructive criticisms to avoid party-initiated wars in the country. Our leadership should define its position on the party’s unity, discuss the obstacles and impediments standing in the way and ensure the required guarantees are in place to implement the intra-SPLM Arusha agreement. There is an excellent need for SPLM leadership to hold a political symposium on the unification of the party before preparations for the general elections scheduled for 2024.

The future of South Sudan as a sovereign state relies entirely on SPLM, of which we should endeavour as members to explore and gauge the intentions of the other political entities on the question of unity, equality, and well-being of our people. It should be a meaningful debate to reverse the current trends that plunged our nation into a destructive war of power struggle. The proposed political parties conference or symposium will address issues of governance and national identity defined to be respected by all South Sudanese political parties as national character.

The polarization of SPLM into many political parties should only be avoided if we return our beloved historical party to its ideal fundamental objectives and ideology. The party’s highest organs need to be reorganised accordingly and promote some staunchest cadres who are well-vast with the ideal mission of the party to the top brass so that they fix the current situation within the party structures.

The unity of SPLM as the most significant political force in the country can be equated to the unity of the South Sudanese people. It will be our only hope to avoid another surge of violence within the party system as happened in 2013. The party skirmish further widened the gap among different warring communities and precipitated a tense uncalled volatile political atmosphere ridden with the exchange of mutual accusations, as each member of the SPLM faction blamed the other for leading the country back to war, which should be avoided altogether.

The regional parties made several attempts to bridge the gap and bring back the SPLM factions on track to complete the job left by our martyrs of the independence liberation struggle needed necessary reinforcement by all party senior leaders and cadres. As I am fully aware, the SPLM leadership has been at war since its inception in 1983, and this trend should be avoided if the party cater for the welfare of its incoming generations. “The violence leadership struggle within SPLM is deep-rooted, and it needs a selfless leadership style to address the matter neatly; otherwise, crises of leadership struggle will continue to be”.

Why is internal dialogue required? If the leadership of SPLM is indeed in the quest for unification of its ranks and files, then the party is obliged to immediately initiate internal dialogue in reference to the resolutions made in Arusha before the general elections next year. The SPLM, as the most significant ruling political entity in South Sudan, is now tasked to build national characters, which will pave the way for national political cohesion, which most of us lack as South Sudanese people.

Frankly speaking, most of us are still in hot tribal cocoons, which now seem to have the upper hand over our national threads, which are supposed to bind us together as South Sudanese citizens. Are there chances for reconciliation and unification of SPLM? Optimistically, chances for reconciliation and unification of SPLM are only if the party returns to its vision and reforms necessary for national interest and objective. SPLM needs to promote its cadres rather than recruit old politically oriented politicians from other political parties, who imported their ideals and ideologies that clash with SPLM’s core transcendent values.

The reorganisation of SPLM should only be realised if we care much as a political party with our core members, especially when the party considers them in its programs. One of my comrades, before writing this opinion piece, concurred with me, saying that the unity of SPLM is our hope, but another pitfall toward general elections scheduled in 2024 is no longer needed in South Sudan’s political landscape.   He firmly flashed back on several rifts within SPLM since its inception.

The resolutions on political issues were resolved by the time for the SPLM leadership to make a public apology to the people of South Sudan for what had happened since December 15th, 2013, when President Salva Kiir, during the extraordinary convention in Juba, apologised. The resolution also cited that there shall establish new transitional structures of SPLM, develop and implement a comprehensive programme for national unity, peace, reconciliation, healing and promoting harmony among the people of South Sudan.

Nevertheless, all three SPLM groups were supposed to commit themselves to the unification and reconciliation of the SPLM leadership and membership according to the agreement, but the current trend shows that unification of SPLM is a tricky thing to attain. Only two groups, which were signatories to Intra-SPLM dialogue, seemed in recent days to be working together on the future of the party. The unity we desperately needed as South Sudanese will not come until the “SPLM House united”.

Lastly, the SPLM’s recent political rally that sought President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s endorsement is welcomed in good spirit as we witnessed a sea of SPLM supporters painted Wau- Red on that historic day, congratulation on the Organizers! SPLM national secretariat is a vitally crucial political unit, of which its recommendations for the spirit of reform must be supported by the leadership and its membership wholeheartedly. A measure of popular demand, especially the institutionalisation of our house, should be the duty of all the cadres and the leadership to serve the greater interest of the South Sudanese people and country.

The writer is a veteran South Sudanese journalist, SPLM cadre and former Secretary General of Defunct Aweil East State, living in the Republic of South Sudan, Juba. You can reach him at his email address: atergarang452@gmail.com

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