Southern constitutional debate misplaced
By Isaiah Abraham
January 27, 2011 — After successful conduct of the referendum for the people of South Sudan, some groups and politicians are wasting no time but shift to post July 9 arrangements. One of which is the nature of the political structure for the new nation after independence. We are hearing our brothers in that category pushing for a transition government under coalition members to be headed by Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit until fresh election takes place. They said this was agreed in October 2010. Well, there seems to be interest by many about the debate itself as changes of whatever state attracts so much opinions and interpretations from different stakeholders. But I tend to think that our debate should be informed on the basis of our understanding of what does the constitution says shouldn’t be done, and not what should be done after separation. In another word, we have a say on how we want our nation govern after separation, within the confines of our current interim constitution, but not do away with the constitution altogether.
I doubt whether we really need a transition government since the current government is mandated by the people for a period stipulated by our Interim Constitution. That means that our discussion about post July issues should be about what ideas we need to gather and then patch them up in our Interim Constitution. We aren’t going to do a way with Interim Constitution (just to repeat myself) at once, are we? This is a process and therefore fair that our people cease from wasting time on coalition talks. Coalition government is different from broad based government and whatever the understanding or agreement reached between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the other Southern Political Parties doesn’t take away an elected Parliament and the current Executive. This is a bitter truth.
But, I thought Nyakuron Conference Resolutions didn’t call for dissolution of government, does it? It seems as if the ideas (resolutions) were meant to make the two camps (the ruling party and the opposition groups) work together on matters of mutual interests such as post referendum national issues in the cases of distant system of governance through a constitutional conference. On presence governance and its systems shall remain enforce until a Constitutional Conference convene and do it away more rigorous processes. It could be within the current five years of Mr. Kiir or beyond it in another five years of his re-election. So when we heard a shout that the oppositions want to have a say now in the Executive and be part of anything done by the ruling party, I don’t get it. What are these people saying doesn’t add up legally, as Dr. James Okuk says.
No wonder it is the same group that have spent much of the time sitting in the fence when things were tough or opted to stay in colleges and acquire shallow papers are the ones now with big mouths and spoons in the name of name of democracy and pluralism; this shouldn’t happen now until the ruling party in the South stabilize our status. You call it dictatorship, authoritarianism or one man/woman system but feeble hearted boys and ‘women’ enclosed as political parties should leave men alone to finish the liberation job.
Yeah, time for political pluralism will sure be there; our book says it so, but for now, the new nation needs no more politicking but work, work and work (development). We have been in nowhere and we should all join hands and work together for the rebuilding of our home land. We can’t spend time jostling for power; this is a great moment in our history that the people of Southern Sudan (should be Azania) shouldn’t miss. We have a lot in common, and few in numbers. The world is watching us why did we need our state in the first place.
I urge here hence our current Minister for Legal Affairs Mr. John Luk Jok, who is entrusted with the job of reviewing our constitution to take his time and never temper with our current elected system, decentralization practice or anything that might raise political temperatures. I believe he’s a leveled headed gentleman and would apply the law. If the opposition groups serious, they will go the people in 2016 and from there, they will be employed by the electorates. Therefore, the entire government of the day and the SPLM must unify their position about issues after July 9. I heard them speaking different tongues…
Separately, the issue of name for our new republic has become a debate. The Minister of Information for our government was purported to have said that the government would go by “South Sudan” or “Southern Sudan” name and the question is what if the North changes to Sennar Arabic Republic or Just Sudan? Please Hon. Dr. Marial, don’t conclude the issue of name at the moment, give rooms for others; some of us believe Azania or Nile will break the cord with the North forever.
Isaiah Abraham lives in Juba; he can be reached at [email protected]
Abuoi Jook
Southern constitutional debate misplaced
Dear Isaiah,
I chose not to comment on debate about constitutional review but opted to the issue of naming new nation. This became sickening to me indeed as i wonder why do we really run away from our historical connectedness and just rush to names that are even unfamiliar with our origin? People let’s be more reasonable on this issue of suggesting strange names. it’s there let’s not get paranoid with reunification as the motive for new naming of our state. We’re gone for good even though we still keep Sudan connection it doesn’t mean that reuniting is possible never at all get me right now full stop..
Facts Check
Southern constitutional debate misplaced
Isaiah, there is no need to entertain these traitors with useless univerisity degrees like Obuay and his likes. They need to lick their elbows as bashir would tell them!
Facts Check
Southern constitutional debate misplaced
Or they should soak the communique in water and drink it!
Logwanga
Southern constitutional debate misplaced
Isaiah is one of my favourite writer, even if he sometimes try to indulge himself into a tribal writing, he is a nationalist, he is not like other tribal writer, yeah Mr. Abraham, all opposition parties need to wait until we cross the ocean, then from there each political party will come board. But first, we need to limit number of political parties in our new country,if we want to have stable nation,too much political parties without a vision is a mess to society.example,some of our currently political parties in the south sudan are not real working for our people.but driven by their personal greedness to up-hold on power and money.
DOOR
Southern constitutional debate misplaced
Gatwech,
You shouldn’t have been broad-lipped then.
To talk of broad-based you should bear in mind that some abject oppositions would suffer in the process.
All these wrangling will be left to the websites.
The only opposition party we know is SPLM-DC anything else is pure trash and deserve no recognition.
Kolong
Southern constitutional debate misplaced
Isaiah Abraham
This is a well crafted and written opinion, congratulations! However, I disagree with your posting based on the following views:
As Gatwech clearly pointed out, the current Interim Constitution will need to be amended in order to incorporate a set of new laws that will be governing the new state because the current one will cease with the CPA, thus the impotance of the constitutional review….I do not need to dwel on that any further.
You will agree with me that our current Interim Constitution is still inadequate…there are still many laws we need to slot in. For example, corruption is now a menance and wide spread in South Sudan thus resulting in loss of millions of dollars which would have been used to speed up the much needed rehabilitation and development process. Although we have the Anti-Corruption Commission which is the poeple’s watchdog, it cannot prosecute cases of corruption because there are no laws empowering them as such in the current Interim Constitution…we need it sloted or factored in the new state’s constitution.
As of now, the Anti-Corruption Commission still refers cases of corruption to the Ministry of Legal Affairs which to my recollection (I stand to be corrected if it is not true) has not prosecuted any case since the signing of the CPA; and if it is true, do we need such ills to continue unabetted?
I agree with you that the new state does not need political pluralism at this time but devotion of our energy to work in order to accelerate the development process. Great! I too do not agree with political pluralism which breeds opposition that is more inclined towards violence and revolution. However, I wanted us to look at this scenarios from a different perspective.
i- If the constitutional review is to to enhance policy enforcement (involvement of opposition in active decision making process), then don’t you think political pluralism would be worth? If not, how?
ii- You know that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely and that is why we need opposition to cause scrutiny (checks in the system). It is said you cannot straighten a mature tree lest you break it…is it not worth curbing such tendencies at an early stage? What will you do if it becomes chronic? Do you think our government will effect change if it does not listen and respect people?
iii- You indisputably know that the issue of tribalism is still deeply rooted in us South Sudanese to the extent that even recruitment in public service is being done on I know you basis rather than competence…what best way do you think such a situation will be tackled other than allowing an environment of political pluralism so that the opposition provides for the much need monitoring and checks because it looks like it is going out of hand or would you want it to go that way because you have a GOD FATHER in the system?
You mentioned that the current elected representatives should continue in office until, under what mandate? If they are the peoples elected representatives, why get worried because they would be voted back into representation since the electorate have faith in them…unless you are telling the citizens that there is something fishy with their previous declared election victories.
Thanks
Kolong