South Sudan: Another deadlock over states gov’t formation

June 25, 2020 News, Newsbeat, South Sudan

South Sudan arch rivals, President Salva Kiir Mayardit and his former deputy, Dr. Riek Machar Teny, leader of the SPLM/A in Opposition gazing at each other’s eyes during peace process in Khartoum in 2018(Photo credit: shared/unknown)

June 25, 2020 (SSNN) – South Sudan parties to the revitalized peace agreement have come to another deadlock over when the state governments are formed, the South Sudan News Now has learned.

President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny agreed last week to the allocation of states with Kiir’s group taking six states of Unity, Warrap, Lakes, Eastern and Central Equatoria and Northern Bahr el Ghazal.

Machar’s SPLM-Io was given the three states of Upper Nile, Western Equatoria and Western Bahr el Ghazal. The South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) was given the restive Jonglei state which it initially rejected, but accepted later on.

Kiir was expected to announced the state governors this week, but a senior government official who spoke to South Sudan News Now from Juba on Thursday said the National Democratic Movement (NDM) led by Dr. Lam Akol, who is also the secretary-general of South Sudan Opposition Alliance, and the SPLM-IO have requested that the parliament be reconstituted first.

“The SPLM-IO and the group of SSOA, especially the NDM of Lam Akol, have requested that the Transitional Parliament be reconstituted first and without which it would be very hard to maintain security at the states,” the official said.

The latest deadlock on the state governments formation comes as UN mission in the country expressed concerns over the alarming ethnic violence in several parts of the world’s youngest country.

Fighting between the Nuer, Dinka and Murle communities in Greater Jonglei has been alarming in recent months with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), calling on the parties to form state governments whose absence has created power vacuum at the state levels.

David Shearer, the head of UNMISS and the Special Representative of the UN secretary-general in South Sudan told the Security Council this week that the country’s organizing forces were joining the ethnic violence in the country.

The latest UN report has raised fears that the violence in the country may jeopardize the successful implementation of the revitalized peace agreement.