Census results vs power and wealth Sharing: Where is Salva Kiir?

By Tut Gatwech

June 13, 2009 — Mr. President Salva Kiir Mayardit, where are you? The National Elections Commission’s chairman, Abel Alier, has now officially allotted seats in the National Assembly based on the recent poorly conducted 2008 census results (read the news article on Sudantribune.com, 13th June).

In your last meeting in the Presidency, Mr. President, you assured the people of South Sudan not to worry because, according to you, the census results would not affect power and wealth sharing arrangements.

You said the CPA’s power and wealth sharing provisions, which give 28% of power to SPLM and 50% of wealth to South Sudan, would not be affected by the census and therefore continue for the rest of the interim period.

What has begun to surface now is the opposite, Mr. President. Abel Alier has officially begun to adjust the power sharing arrangements by allocating the parliament seats based on the census results.

According to his Commission, all South Sudan constituencies represent only 21% of power sharing in the country. Out of 450 seats in the National Assembly, South Sudan will only get 93 seats, almost equal to seats allocated to only one state in the North.

The biggest state in the Sudan which happens to be in the North, according to Abel Alier’s allocations, received 70 (seventy) seats while the so-called ‘smallest’ state in the country, which happens to be in the South, received only 4 (four) seats. Are you happy with this, Mr. President?

What really did happen at the Presidency meeting on census results, Mr. President? Who is telling the truth? The media, both in Khartoum and Juba, suggest that you agreed at the Presidency to approve the census results. Some of the sources from Khartoum quote statements coming directly from the mouths of your colleagues in the Presidency, President Bashir and Vice President Taha.

But as my President, I might initially believe your story that the census results were not approved by Your Excellency at the Presidency in whole. I might also believe what you assured the people of South Sudan of that the census results would not affect the current power and wealth sharing arrangements as provided for in the CPA. You told us that this was what you agreed upon at the Presidency?

Mr. President, what is going on now? Is Mr. Abel Alier acting alone without being directed by the same Presidency to adjust power sharing based on the census results? Is it not right to also suggest that the same adjustment will soon apply to wealth sharing arrangements?

Mr. President, it looks as if you are losing and retreating every now and then in the Presidency. It looks like you don’t have any say at all in the Presidency. The fact that you have withdrawn your presence in person from the Presidency in Khartoum indicates your retreat from the national issues as well as failing the South.

You were supposed to be the shield for the people of South Sudan at the Presidency so that decisions that could affect the future of South Sudan on national issues could be defused and resolved by your participation in decision-making at the Presidency, Your Excellency.

Mr. President, we know that decisions taken at the Presidency are taken through consensus not through majority. Three of you (Bashir, Kiir and Taha) have to agree to make a decision. If you stand your ground as SPLM chairman and as South Sudan President the two NCP northerners would not decide unilaterally. If they insist, then you can refer the matter to the two parties (SPLM and NCP) to discuss it as equals at the party level.

But Mr. President, majority of the people of South Sudan are losing confidence in you unless you don’t monitor the public opinion. Overwhelming majority of them don’t trust you in whatever you do, Mr. President. Even the conduct of the census last year was prematurely directed by Your Excellency.

Now the same Abel Alier’s Commission is beginning to talk of possible postponement of the February 2010 elections for the third time as revealed by his deputy. There are rumors flying around that you, Mr. President, also favors postponement of the elections. If that is true then why is it, Mr. President?

If it is because you fear losing elections either in the South or at the national level, then why don’t you step down and give others a chance. May be there are some of your colleagues who are confident that they may win the elections if given the chance. Also losing elections is part of democratic transformation which Your Excellency is preaching to implement.

Mr. President, I am not sure whether or not you watch or listen to international TV and radio stations to acquaint yourself with how democratic politics operate and how leaders take tough decisions. Some leaders quit leadership by resigning when they understand that the public has lost confidence in them.

The current level of failures under your leadership is so very high that in other democratic countries such failures would lead to a leader voluntarily resigning, or forced out of office by public demonstrations or uprisings, God forbids.

We the South Sudanese don’t want to force our leaders out of power through uprising at least before 2011, no matter how useless a leader can be. We may do so through the upcoming February 2010 elections if you, Kiir and Bashir, allow it to take place in a free and fair manner.

However, the recent comments of the Elections Commission, to yet again postpone the elections further, is pushing us against the wall and forcing us to run out of patience because it denies us our constitutional right to choose our right leaders.

And if elections are further postponed, which is more likely to happen, and then this will also affect the schedule of 2011 referendum which may be pushed to 2012 or even 2013. We cannot afford this, Mr. President!

Mr. President, you have failed your people on many vital issues at the national and Southern Sudan levels. In the South for the last four years you have not shown a qualitative and competent leadership.

I may not enumerate your failures in all fields of development, economy, service delivery, security, fight against corruption, tribalism, lack of political direction, etc. You know them as the people of South Sudan know them and have been talking about them.

Mr. President, during the bush war you were respected by the majority of our people including myself. You were such a good man. You were very far from corruption practiced by the former leadership. Like a faithful wife to her husband, you chose to confine yourself to Yei as Chief of General Staff among the SPLA forces.

You did your work in a very clean way as far us corruption and military issues were concerned. You fought your good military fight in the war for liberation of our people from oppression by the racist regimes in Khartoum.

I wish you were the same Salva Kiir Mayardit after 2005. But you have unfortunately changed, Mr. President. Have you ever compared how people talk of you during the liberation struggle and how the same people talk of you now?

Don’t spoil your good and hard won history which you gained during the war. I know a leader who could fight a military war well may not also qualify to lead a modern nation well using complicated systems of governance. And you are now destroying and erasing from people’s memory your good achievements during the war. People now hate you!

Mr. President, if I were you, I would save a little of my good reputation. Do something extraordinary good for people to applaud. Think about that! This will make them recall your good deeds during the war.

It can make them forget your four years of bad experience and would recall your original self- the Salva Kiir of 1983 to 2005. Nelson Mandela of South Africa is now enjoying his private life after stepping down. Isn’t he?

Don’t depend on your close, but bad advisors who want to keep you hostage by keeping your feet in sticking mud from which you may not pull out. I know what they want is to keep milking you from behind. They don’t care whether you are fainting as long as they are squeezing milk out of a dying cow. What they want is to squeeze out milk as long as they could before you finally collapse on that sticky mud.

The four years you have spent is an equivalent to a full term in office in other countries such as the United States of America. You have tried it for a full term, but miserably failed. Mr. President, I hate to see you destroying your good history in the liberation struggle through your present failures after failures. You were a military leader in the bush, but this time, in addition to a bold fighter, the South needs a leader with political and diplomatic capability.

The SPLA’s same generals during the war are there to do the military part. Give your political and diplomatic part to someone else who will play it and govern your people confidently in the right way and to develop the South. There are some of such leaders with you in the SPLM.

We, particularly the young generation and many of whom participated in the Red Army during the struggle, will remember you as a leader who has made a decision in the interest of his people. This will help us recall you as Salva Kiir of liberation struggle and erase the idea of corrupt, coward and incompetent Salva Kiir of today. Don’t make your history to have a very bad ending. We love you, but help us out to recall your original self, Sir!

Tut Gatwech lives in South Sudan. He can be reached at: [email protected]