GOSS directive closes Lakes parliament

By Manyang Mayom

December 2, 2008 (RUMBEK) – The legislative assembly of Lakes state will be closed for two weeks by decree of the deputy governor of Lakes state.

Orders came from Juba, from the Southern Sudan president himself, that given tension between rival groups of MPs, the assembly should remain closed until the governor of the state returns from medical treatment abroad.

Awan Guol Riak, the deputy and acting governor of Lakes state, said that he was acting out of respect for the directives of President Salva Kiir Mayardit and “his good leadership interventions to solve the crisis and normalize relations within the organs of Government in the State twice.”

Riak thus issued Lakes state Decree No.10, 2008 to close down Lakes State legislative Assembly with effect from December 2, 2008.

This is now third time the Assembly has been closed down since a crisis began in the Assembly last August.

Meanwhile, the political earthquake in the Assembly has affected the executive body, which lost the opportunity to present the new yearly budget for approval.

Isaiah Alier Mashinkok, the suspended speaker of the assembly, accuses the Lakes state Executive body and the SPLM secretariat members of being behind the move that resulted in his impeachment in September and disturbances committed within the Assembly hall of pushing out Justice Daniel Deng to prevent him from swearing in three NCP members.

Mashinkok is involved in a power struggle in Lakes state and in early October was reinstated to his position by Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit.

Yet recently the SPLM Lakes state secretariat office suspended the party membership of Mashinkok, but a key government official in the Government of Southern Sudan described this move as illegal.

Recently Mashinkok declared the lifting of immunities of eight honorable members of the Lakes state legislative Assembly and called for their immediate arrest, but Southern Sudan Speaker James Wani Igga described this decision as illegal.

(ST)