SPLM in thanksgiving campaign as it plans to restructure

July 19, 2012 (JUBA) – The ruling party in South Sudan, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) are winding up a vigorous thanksgiving campaign of outreach to the grassroots across the ten states of the new born nation.

Senior leaders of the party have been dispatched to the states carrying the message of thanksgiving to the populations for their various contributions during the liberation struggle as well as for standing behind the party and the government during the interim period of six years leading to the independence of South Sudan.

The vice president of the Republic and deputy chairperson of the SPLM, Riek Machar Teny, led a delegation of senior party leaders to Lakes state. He visited all the state counties where he explained to the grassroots the reason why the people of South Sudan should deserve thanksgiving from the ruling party.

Machar said that without the human and material contributions and steadfastness of the people behind the vision and mission of the SPLM the liberation struggle would not have been successful and concluded with a peace agreement which gave the people of South Sudan the right to self-determination.

Machar also thanked the people for electing the SPLM into power and voting overwhelmingly for independence in the region.

He said his party was working to improve on the system of governance, provide security, fight corruption and develop the nation.

The party’s deputy chairman will conclude the thanksgiving campaign next week in Lakes state with a meeting of the State Liberation Council.

On Wednesday in Juba he met with the SPLM State Secretary, Abraham Moses Majok, who briefed him on the ongoing preparations in the state to hold the meeting on 28 July.

Leaders of SPLM who hail from Lakes state at the national, state and county levels will all attend the meeting in the state’s capital, Rumbek.

The party also plans to hold an extraordinary national convention next month to review documents and restructure. President Salva Kiir Mayardit and chairperson of the SPLM has already formed various committees to review the party’s constitution, manifesto and code of conduct, among others, to be presented for adoption to the extraordinary national convention.

Also the National Liberation Council, in its recent meeting, had passed a resolution readmitting into the SPLM all the independent candidates who were former members of the SPLM but stood independently in the April 2010 elections.

The next national convention is due to take place in May 2013 before the expected 2015 general elections.

(ST)