South Sudan’s VP supports term limits on presidency: report
By Philip Thon Aleu
February 11, 2011 (KAMPALA) – The second most powerful man in the soon-to-be independent state of South Sudan, Vice-President Riek Machar, is opposed to open-ended terms in power, he has told a Ugandan newspaper.
Machar said that setting a maximum of two terms in office would “improve governance and democratic systems.”
South Sudan voted overwhelming for secession from North Sudan in a referendum stipulated under the 2005 peace deal that ended nearly half a century of intermittent civil war between the two sides.
The most recent North-South war, which killed over two million people, broke out in Bor town, Jonglei state, on May 16, 1983, under the leadership of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), then led by its late leader John Garang.
The SPLM have pledged to organize elections and form a broad-based government after the south is officially independent on July 2011 in order to assuage concerns of possible political instability in the region.
South Sudan has a taskforce currently reviewing its interim constitution in order enact necessary legislation, including length of interim period and presidential term limits.
South Sudan underwent general elections in April last year re-electing incumbent, President Salva Kiir, by a large margin ahead of his main competitor, Lam Akol, the leader of a splinter party; the SPLM-Democratic Change.
(ST)