Sudan’s Machar urges delegates to prepare the ground for elections

By James Gatdet Dak

May 23, 2008 (JUBA) — The newly re-elected First Deputy Chairperson for the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and Vice President of the Government of Southern Sudan, Riek Machar Teny, urged the SPLM delegates from all the 26 states of Sudan who came for the recently concluded Second National Convention to start preparing and enlightening the grassroots population from now for the next year’s general elections in the country.

Machar made the remarks at a dinner party on Thursday which his family arranged at his residence in Juba where thousands of SPLM delegates and citizens from both North and South attended.

He told the delegates to carry the message of reconciliation and unity among the people and urged various communities in the country to interact with one another as this would help bring about understandings and reconciliations among the diverse communities.

Machar added that the SPLM as a party should not only concentrate in the South but also significantly increase its membership in northern states by selling its policies and programmes to the wider north in order for it to win the coming general elections in the country.

He commended the Movement’s Second National Convention which he said successfully transformed itself into a vibrant democratic political party whose leadership should listen to the voices of the people.

Machar said the transformed party should now be guided by its recently adopted constitution, manifesto and strategic policies.

His wife, Madam Angelina Teny, welcomed the delegates and citizens to her house, saying her family had opened the door for citizens to interact with.

Madam Teny, who is also the State Minister for Energy and Mining in the Government of National Unity (GoNU), said she was happy that the SPLM Second National Convention managed to reconcile and strengthen the unity of the party and its democratic transformation.

(ST)